Antioxidant Properties of Essential Oil Extracted from Pinus morrisonicola Hay Needles by Supercritical Fluid and Identification of Possible Active Compounds by GC/MS.

Pine (Pinus morrisonicola Hay, PM) needles have been used as folk medicine for their antihypertension and lipid-lowering effects. As supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) is considered an ideal technique for the extraction of essential oil from plant materials, the present work investigated the optimal SFE conditions and the protective effects of different resulting fractions of PM needles on lipid peroxidation and foam cell production in macrophages. Nine PM needle extracts (PME1-9) were obtained in 1%-4% yields using different SFE conditions, of which PME1 had the lowest yield (1.