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GC–MS and FTIR spectroscopy for the identification and assessment of essential oil components of five cinnamon leaves

  • Biochemistry & Physiology - Original Article
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Abstract

The cinnamon leaf is widely used in flavoring, cooking, essences and medicine. In this work, we systematically detected and identified the volatile compounds of the leaves from five cinnamon species (Cinnamomum cassia (Xijiang type), C. cassia (Fangcheng type), C. loureirii, C. verum and C. burmannii) collected in China by using the methods of GC–MS and FTIR analysis, and compared the correlation between the density of oil cells and the yields of essential oils among above detected samples. The results indicated that the variation of the yields of essential oils was significant positively correlated with the density oil cells of five cinnamon leaves. Based on the results of GC–MS, trans-cinnamaldehyde was the primary components in the four cinnamon species except for C. verum. Notably, the highest contents of trans-cinnamaldehyde in the essential oil are C. loureirii (72.49%), followed by C. cassia (Xijiang type) (60.65%). Eugenol (83.26%) was the main substance of C. verum leaves. In addition to trans-cinnamaldehyde, isoamyl benzoate (7.02%) and α-thujene (6.28%) were the main volatile compounds in C. burmannii leaves. Finally, through analyzing the FTIR data by using hierarchical cluster and similarity analysis were further revealed that the chemical compositions of essential oil were similar of C. loureirii, C. cassia (Xijiang type) and C. cassia (Fangcheng type), and they were significantly different from C. verum and C. burmannii. All these results confirm that species and cultivated environment can lead to the changes in essential oil composition.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Science and Technology Innovation Fund Project on Forestry of Guangdong Province (2017KJ-CX006), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2019A1515011005).

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  1. Mei Bai and Xin Jin have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guangdong Key Laboratory for Innovative Development and Utilization of Forest Plant Germplasm, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China

    Mei Bai, Xin Jin, Zeyu Cen, Kai Yu, Hangchen Yu, Jun Deng, Ziwen Lai, Hong Wu & Yanqun Li

  2. State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-Bioresources, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China

    Mei Bai, Ruizhuo Xiao, Hong Wu & Yanqun Li

  3. Guangdong Technology Research Center for Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine and Natural Medicine, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China

    Hong Wu

Authors
  1. Mei Bai
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  2. Xin Jin
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  3. Zeyu Cen
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  4. Kai Yu
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Contributions

Mei Bai contributed to conceptualization, software, and writing—original draft; Xin Jin contributed to methodology and data curation; Zeyu Cen contributed to investigation and writing—original draft; Kai Yu contributed to methodology and visualization; Hangchen Yu contributed to methodology; Jun Deng contributed to supervision; Ziwen Lai contributed to methodology and formal analysis; Ruizhuo Xiao, Yanqun Li and Hong Wu contributed to supervision, validation, and writing—review & editing.

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Correspondence to Hong Wu or Yanqun Li.

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Bai, M., Jin, X., Cen, Z. et al. GC–MS and FTIR spectroscopy for the identification and assessment of essential oil components of five cinnamon leaves. Braz. J. Bot 44, 525–535 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40415-021-00751-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40415-021-00751-7

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