**Author details**

*Essential Oils - Oils of Nature*

**5. Conclusions**

having the EC50 of 14 μg mL<sup>−</sup><sup>1</sup>

**Acknowledgements**

**Conflict of interest**

tion of this article.

isms and help increase the shelf life of foods.

A relatively lower EC50 value was found for *Z. officinale* essential oil by the β-carotene/linoleic acid system [78]. The author attributes the antioxidant activity of the oil to the geranium and neral aldehydes, which were found in their essential

These studies have shown that the essential oils of *C. zeylanicum* (cinnamon), *O. vulgare* (oregano), *Z. officinale* (ginger), *R. officinalis* (rosemary), *C. longa* L. (saffron) and *C. latifolia* (Tahiti lemon), in the chemical composition, presented a mixture of mono- and sesquiterpenes, with the major constituents being cinnamic aldehyde (46.30%), cis-p-menth-2-en-1-ol (33.8%), α-zingiberene (27.14%), camphor (37%), turmerone (55.43%) and limonene dioxide (25.92%), respectively. Results of disc diffusion showed the essential oil of *C. longa* as the oil with the highest bactericidal action independent of the bacteria strain; however, the lowest bactericidal concentration observed was the lowest concentration of *C. zeylanicum* essential oil (83.33 μg mL-1) in *S. aureus* strains. The antioxidant activity of *O. vulgare* presented the percentage of inhibition of the 90.74% radical by 50 μg mL<sup>−</sup><sup>1</sup>

ent in the essential oils of the species tested presented antimicrobial activity and antioxidant action. These characteristics contribute to the control of microorgan-

The present study was funded by Coordenacão de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publica-

de Nível Superior, Brazil (CAPES) [Finance Code 001]; Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (E-26/111.252/2014), for Kátia da Silva Calabrese; by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico do Maranhão (APP-00844/09 and Pronex-241709/2014); Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, (407831/2012.6 and 309885/2017-5) for Ana Lucia Abreu-Silva and by CNPq/SECTI/FAPEMA (DCR03438/16) for Fernando Almeida-Souza; as well as the IOC (article processing charges).

. These results indicate that bioactive molecules pres-

oil at concentrations much higher than in this work.

**156**

Amanda Mara Teles1 , Adenilde Nascimento Mouchreck1 , Gustavo Oliveira Everton1 , Ana Lucia Abreu-Silva2 , Kátia da Silva Calabrese3 and Fernando Almeida-Souza3 \*

1 Federal University of Maranhão, São Luís, Brazil


\*Address all correspondence to: fernandoalsouza@gmail.com

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
