Abstract

• In Myanmar, lemon basil is commonly used as a fragrant spice in cooking. Volatile oils present in lemon basil, such as linalool, nerol and citral, which possess antibacterial and antimicrobial properties. Therefore, the essential oil of lemon basil was prepared by hydrodistillation. Then, the essential oil was analyzed by GC-MS method. In GC-MS analysis, GC oven temperatures were assigned by four levels in the range of 80o to 250 oC. The increasing temperature rates were controlled by 10o to 15 oC/min; carrier gas, helium at a constant flow 1.0 mL/min. The injector temperature and mass transfer line temperature were fixed at 270o and 280 oC, respectively. The molecular masses are arranged in 15 to 250 amu (m/z) and assigned retention time (min) in the range of 3 to 11. According to the GC-MS analysis, the essential oil could contain linalool, terpinen-4-ol, cis-geranirol, cis-verbenol, citral, 3,3,7-trimethl-oct-6-enoic acid methyl ester, 1-methoxy-3,7-dimethyl-2,6-octadiene, caryophyllene, germacrene and 4-[(1E), 1,5-dimethyl-1, 4-hexadiene-1-yl]-1-methyl cyclohexene. The antimicrobial screening of the prepared essential oil from lemon basil was carried out by agar well diffusion method. In the screening, B. subtilis, S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, B. pumilus, C. albicans and E. coli species were used. From the screening, the antimicrobial activities of essential oil of lemon basil showed the high activities against all microorganisms.