| Abstract
| - The essential oil from Pinus mugo (PMEO) was tested on its antioxidative capacity. For this purpose,several biochemical test sytems were chosen (e.g., the Fenton Systen, the xanthine oxidase assay,or the copper-induced oxidation of low-density lipoprotein (LDL)). The results show that there ismoderate or weak antioxidative activity when tested in aqueous environments, like in the Fentonsystem, xanthine oxidase induced superoxide radical formation, or in the HOCl driven fragmentationof 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC). In contrast, when tested in more lipophilicenvironments (e.g., the ACC-cleavage by activated neutrophils in whole blood) the PMEO exhibitsgood antioxidative activity. PMEO does also show good antioxidative capacity in another lipophilictest system (i.e., the copper induced oxidation of LDL). Some components of PMEO (i.e., Δ3-carene,camphene, α-pinene, (+)-limonene and terpinolene) were also tested. As the PMEO, they showedweak or no antioxidant activity in aqueous environments, but some of them were effective antioxidantsregarding ACC-cleavage by activated neutrophils in whole blood or copper-induced LDL-oxidation.Terpinolene, a minor component of PMEO, exhibited remarkable protection against LDL-oxidation. Keywords: Antioxidants; Pinus mugo; essential oil; monoterpenes; LDL; inflammatory processes
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