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“The East Indian sandalwood tree, Santalum album L. (a Santalaceae member) is MK-2206 chemical structure a woody, tropical tree acclaimed for costliest heartwood and the essential oil obtained from it. Upon steam-distillation the heartwood yields precious sandalwood oil that has over 90% santalols (α- and β-santalols and their sesquiterpenoid isomers). 1 The sesquiterpenoid rich sandalwood essential oil is accumulated beyond

15 years of growth of the tree. The yield ranges from 2.5 to 6% depending on the age of the tree, the color of the heartwood, individual tree understudy, sampling site within the tree and the environment of growth. 2 Reported sandalwood essential oil constituents are sesquiterpenoids, 3 triterpenoids and phenylpropanoids. 4 The major essential oil components are ‘santalane-backbone bearing’ sesquiterpenoids as santalenes and santalols. 1, 3, 5 and 6 However, in sandalwood oil α-santalol is more abundant (46%) than β-santalol (20%) 7, 8 and 9 although both differ in their stereochemistry and biological activity. However, reported literature on total volatile constituents of this tropical essential oil-yielding tree is scanty. Besides, it is highly likely that the non-sesquiterpenoid constituents, other than santalols could play critical roles in several ethnopharmacological and therapeutic properties. The GC–MS profiles of commercially available sandalwood oil obtained by the process of steam-distillation constitute one of the first reports

in this direction. 1 Previously conducted investigations Enzalutamide on heartwood volatiles of sandalwood tree focused mostly on santalol biosynthetic pathway intermediates. 6 In lieu of the available limited information on the wood volatiles, in this study, we investigated the solvent extractable volatiles from the matured heartwood by GC–MS. The heartwood of a 15-year-old tree grown in the Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur campus, was bored at 100 cm height from the ground and

chips/powders were collected and air dried for 48 h. Solvent extraction was done in eluotropic series (n-pentane, n-hexane, chloroform and diethyl ether) in 500 ml volume Erlenmeyer flasks, for 12 h each, at 25 ± 5 °C, with intermittent shaking much in a 10% (w/v) ratio of plant materials to solvent. During extraction 0.01% (w/v) BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene) was added as a synthetic antioxidant to protect the phytochemicals from auto oxidation and served as an internal standard. Obtained extracts were dried over Na2SO4, pooled and were concentrated in vacuuo, in a rotary evaporator (N–N Series, Eyela, Tokyo) at 40 °C. The volatile yield was determined by gravimetric method and was expressed as percentage of starting plant material. The extracts were reconstituted in n-hexane and proceeded for GC–MS analysis. The pooled volatile fraction was analyzed by GC–MS using a Thermo Trace GC Ultra™ gas chromatograph system, equipped with a 30 m (l) × 0.25 mm (i.d.), 0.