Potential anti-inflammatory biomarkers from Myrtaceae essential oils revealed by untargeted metabolomics.

Many species from Myrtaceae have traditionally been used in traditional medicine as anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antidiarrheal, antioxidant and antirheumatic, besides in blood cholesterol reduction. In the present work, the anti-inflammatory activity of essential oils from eighteen Myrtaceae spp. were evaluated according to their anti-inflammatory activity in human blood, and the corresponding biomarkers were determined using untargeted metabolomics data and multivariate data analysis. From these studied species, six displayed anti-inflammatory activity with percentage rates of inhibition of PGE2 release above 70%. Caryophyllene oxide (), humulene epoxide II (), -selinene (), -amorphene (), -selinene (), germacrene A (), -bisabolene (), -muurolene (), -humulene (), -gurjunene (), myrcene (), -elemene (), -cadinol (), -copaene (), -nerolidol () and ledol () were annotated as potential anti-inflammatory biomarkers. The results obtained in this study point to essential oils from species of the Myrtaceae family as a rich source of anti-inflammatory agents.