Organ dependency variation of the chemical composition of Ziziphus lotus volatile fractions

The extended application fields of the essential oils keep them a subject of interest. In this study, we investigated the aerial part essential oil and the fruit essential oil of the wild plant Ziziphus lotus, collected from the southern region of Tunisia. These essential oils obtained by hydrodistillation using a Clevenger-type apparatus showed an extraction yield of 0.013% and 0.0046% respectively. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the samples using GC-MS/GC-FID revealed two distinct compositions. Apocarotenoid derivatives characterized the essential oil of the aerial part; the major compound was hexahydrofarnesyl acetone (23.2%) followed by geranylacetone (12.5%) and cis-hexenyl-3-benzoate (11.1%). While the abundance of fatty acid marked the fruit essential oil. The noticed major compounds were 2-pentadecanone (16.9%), dodecanoic acid ethyl ester (14.5%) and n-hexadecanoic acid (13.0%). Such chemical composition may explain the traditional use of Ziziphus lotus as a drug to treat various pathologies.