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Essential oils of aromatic Egyptian plants repel nymphs of the tick Ixodes ricinus (Acari: Ixodidae)

El-Seedi HR 1 , Azeem M 2 , Khalil NS 2 , Sakr HH 3 , Khalifa SAM 4 , Awang K 5 Show all authors , Saeed A 6 , Farag MA 7 , AlAjmi MF 8 , Pålsson K 2 , Borg-Karlson AK 9

Affiliations 

  • 1 Division of Pharmacognosy, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Biomedical Centre, Uppsala University, Box 574, 751 23, Uppsala, Sweden. hesham.el-seedi@fkog.uu.se
  • 2 Ecological Chemistry Group, Department of Chemistry, School of Chemical Science and Engineering, KTH, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
  • 3 Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, El-Menoufia University, Shebin El-Kom, 32512, Egypt
  • 4 Department of Molecular Biosciences, The Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, 106 91, Sweden
  • 5 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 6 Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, 45320, Pakistan
  • 7 Pharmacognosy Department, College of Pharmacy, Cairo University, Kasr el Aini St., P.B. 11562, Cairo, Egypt
  • 8 Department of Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2457, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia
  • 9 Ecological Chemistry Group, Department of Chemistry, School of Chemical Science and Engineering, KTH, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. akbk@kth.se
Exp Appl Acarol, 2017 Sep;73(1):139-157.
PMID: 28864886 DOI: 10.1007/s10493-017-0165-3

Abstract

Due to the role of Ixodes ricinus (L.) (Acari: Ixodidae) in the transmission of many serious pathogens, personal protection against bites of this tick is essential. In the present study the essential oils from 11 aromatic Egyptian plants were isolated and their repellent activity against I. ricinus nymphs was evaluated Three oils (i.e. Conyza dioscoridis L., Artemisia herba-alba Asso and Calendula officinalis L.) elicited high repellent activity in vitro of 94, 84.2 and 82%, respectively. The most active essential oil (C. dioscoridis) was applied in the field at a concentration of 6.5 µg/cm2 and elicited a significant repellent activity against I. ricinus nymphs by 61.1%. The most repellent plants C. dioscoridis, C. officinalis and A. herba-alba yielded essential oils by 0.17, 0.11 and 0.14%, respectively. These oils were further investigated using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis. α-Cadinol (10.7%) and hexadecanoic acid (10.5%) were the major components of C. dioscoridis whereas in C. officinalis, α-cadinol (21.2%) and carvone (18.2%) were major components. Artemisia herba-alba contained piperitone (26.5%), ethyl cinnamate (9.5%), camphor (7.7%) and hexadecanoic acid (6.9%). Essential oils of these three plants have a potential to be used for personal protection against tick bites.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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