Chemical structure and antifungal activity of mint essential oil components

The objective of this research was to determine chemical composition and to evaluate the antifungal activity of essential oil of Mentha piperita. By the application of GC/MS analysis of essential mint oil, 27 components were identified. The major components were menthol (39.9 %), menton (23.51 %), menthyl acetate (7.29 %), 1.8-cineol (5.96 %), isomenton (5.24 %), isomenthol (3.17 %), trans-caryophyllene (2.88 %), limonene (2.14 %), pulegon (1.38 %), beta-pinene (1.14 %) and piperiton (1.03 %). The quantitative structure-retention relationship (QSRR) was employed to predict the retention time (RT) of Mentha piperita essential oil compounds obtained in GC/MS analysis, using twelve molecular descriptors selected by genetic algorithm. The selected descriptors were used, as inputs of an artificial neural network, to build an RT predictive QSRR model. The coefficient of determination was 0.983, during training cycle, indicating that this model could be used for prediction of RT values for essential oil compounds in Mentha piperita essential oil extracts. Essential oil of Mentha piperita showed antifungal activity on all tested isolates in the minimal inhibitory concentration range of 0.2-1.7 mu l/ml and a minimal fungicidal concentration (MFC) range of 1.7-454.5 mu l/ml. The most powerful antifungal activity of mint was observed in C. cladosporioides of MFC value 1.7 mu l/ml. P. aurantiogriseum showed the lowest sensitivity of MFC value 454.5 mu l/ml.