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. 2021 Dec 22;11(1):15.
doi: 10.3390/plants11010015.

Phytochemical Analysis, Antimicrobial and Antioxidant Properties of Thymus zygis L. and Thymus willdenowii Boiss. Essential Oils

Fatima Zahrae Radi  1 , Mohamed Bouhrim  1 , Hamza Mechchate  2 , Mohammed Al-Zahrani  3 , Ashraf Ahmed Qurtam  3 , Abdulmalik M Aleissa  4 , Aziz Drioiche  1 , Nadia Handaq  1 , Touriya Zair  1
Affiliations

Phytochemical Analysis, Antimicrobial and Antioxidant Properties of Thymus zygis L. and Thymus willdenowii Boiss. Essential Oils

Fatima Zahrae Radi et al. Plants (Basel). .

Abstract

Essential oils (EOs) are chemical products produced by odoriferous glands from a variety of plants. These essential oils have many health benefits: antiseptic, anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial activities. So due to these medicinal properties, the present study was designed to analyze essential oils of Thymus zygis L. and Thymus willdenowii Boiss. for their chemical composition and biological activities. These two thyme species were collected from the region of Ifrane, Middle Atlas of Morocco. The EO was obtained by hydrodistillation, and the yields were 5.25% for T. zygis and 3.00% for T. willdenowii. The chemical composition of the EOs was analyzed by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and the results showed that T. zygis EO is dominated by carvacrol (52.5%), o-cymene (23.14%), and thymol (9.68%), while the EO of T. willdenowii contains germacrene D (16.51%), carvacrol (16.19%), and geranyl acetate (8.35%) as major compounds. The antioxidant activity assessed by Diphenylpicrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assays revealed that both EOs have excellent antioxidant activities; by DPPH it resulted in IC50 = 6.13 ± 0.11 for T. zygis and 6.78 ± 0.3 µg/mL for T. willdenowii, while the one by FRAP yielded EC50 = 2.46 ± 0.01 (T. zygis) and 5.17 ± 0.2 (T. willdenowii) µg/mL. The antimicrobial activity of the two essential oils was evaluated against six bacterial strains and five fungal strains by the disk diffusion method to determine the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC), Minimum Bactericidal Concentration (MBC) and Minimum Fungicidal Concentration (MFC). The EOs revealed variable antimicrobial activities against the different tested microbial strains and showed strong antimicrobial activities, even against strains known as multi-resistant to antibiotics (Acinetobacter baumannii) at low concentrations (2 µL/mL). T. zygis EO showed the most powerful activity against all the studied bacteria, while that of T. willdenowii recorded moderate activity when tested against Shigella dysenteriae and Salmonella Typhi. With inhibition diameters that vary between 75 mm and 84 mm for concentrations of 2 µL/mL up to 12 µL/mL, S. aureus was shown to be the most sensitive to T. zygis EO. For the antifungal activity test, T. zygis EO showed the best inhibition diameters compared to T. willdenowii EO. These results showed that T. zygis EO has more powerful antioxidant and antimicrobial activities than T. willdenowii EO, therefore, we deduce that thyme EOs are excellent antioxidants, they have strong antimicrobial properties, and may in the future represent new sources of natural antiseptics that can be used in pharmaceutical and food industry.

Keywords: GC-MS analysis; Thymus willdenowii Boiss; Thymus zygis L.; bacteria; fungi; molds; multi-resistant bacteria; volatile compounds.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Chromatograms of the EOs. (A) T. zygis, (B) T. willdenowii.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Percentage of chemical families in the thymes EO.
Figure 3
Figure 3
DPPH Free radical scavenging activity of T. zygis, T. willdenowii, and ascorbic acid. Inhibitory percentage (A) and IC50 (B) against the DPPH Free radical. data are presented as mean ± SD, the experiment was performed in a minimum of 2 replicates T. zygis: Thymus zygis, T. willdenowii: Thymus willdenowii.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The effective concentrations (EC50) of T. zygis, T. willdenowii and ascorbic acid; data are mean ± SD, experiment was performed in minimum 2 replicates T. zygis: Thymus zygis, T. willdenowii: Thymus willdenowii.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Antifungal activity of the essential oil of T. willdenowii tested on C. albicans (L13), C. glabrata (L14), Candida spp. (L15), F. solani (H13), and A. fischeri (G2).
Figure 6
Figure 6
(A) Thymus zygis L. and (B) Thymus willdenowii Boiss.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Determination of the Minimum Bactericidal Concentration (MBC) and Minimum Fungicidal Concentration (MFC) of essential oils. In this example the MIC is C4 where the strains are alive but inhibited from growth in the tube and the MBC or MFC is C5 where the strains are totally killed by the EOs.
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