Magnolia grandiflora (Magnoliaceae) is an evergreen tree with fragrant
and showy flowers native to southeastern USA but widely cultivated
all over the world and used in cosmetics industry in treatment of skin
diseases. Here, we report on the chemical analysis of the essential oil
obtained from flowers of plants cultivated in Iran, together with the
evaluation of its antioxidant and cytotoxic activities. The essential oil
composition was dominated by bioactive sesquiterpenes, namely β-
elemene, bicyclogermacrene, germacrene D and (E)-caryophyllene.
The oil exhibited moderate radical scavenging activity towards the
ABTS⋅+ radical, and mild non-selective inhibitory effects against A375,
MDA-MB 231 and T98 G tumour cell lines. The latter were influenced
by the presence of the anticancer β-elemene. These results provided
new insights for potential application of M. grandiflora volatile oil in
the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry where only the nonvolatile
magnolol and honokiol have hitherto been fully exploited.