GC-MS and Chemometric Contrastive Analysis of the Essential Oils from the Leaves of <i>Chimonanthus salicifolius</i> S.Y.Hu and <i>Chimonanthus nitens</i> Oliv. in China

Background/Objective: Chimonanthus salicifolius S.Y.Hu ( C. salicifolius ) is one of the most important herbs in She nationality of China. For the similar appearance of C. salicifolius and Chimonanthus nitens Oliv. ( C. nitens ), they are often used in confusion in folk. In order to preliminarily estimate whether C. salicifolius is the pharmaceutical base source of C. nitens , in this study, the essential oil components of C. salicifolius and C. nitens from different locations in China were analyzed for the first time. Methods: The essential oil components of C. salicifolius and C. nitens from different locations in China were analyzed by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Results: The two essential oils contained 67 and 71 compounds, respectively, and with 18 common components. The primary components of volatile oil of C. salicifolius were eucalyptol, linalool, caryophyllene, δ -cadinene and limonene, while those of C. nitens were eucalyptol, linalool, 2-bornanone and α -terpineol. PLS-DA and HCA were performed on 18 common main components. The C. salicifolius species sources (L1 and L2) were in a cluster, the C. salicifolius species sources (L3) and the C. nitens species sources (S1-S3) were in another cluster. The differential substances of the two clusters were eucalyptol, linalool, caryophyllene, 2-bornanone, limonene and α -terpineol. In the cell experiment, the essential oils of C. salicifoliu s and C. nitens exerted evident anti-inflammatory effects. Conclusions: Our work indicated that there were similarity in types, contents and anti-inflammatory effects of essential oil of C. salicifoliu s and C. nitens from different germplasm resources. This study determined preliminarily that C. salicifolius could be used as the medicinal base of source of C. nitens .