Determination of chemical profiles and antioxidant activity of the essential oil of Thymus cherlerioides Vis.

Abstract

Thymus species is one of the most important medicinal plants due to itsethnobotanical uses and bioactive constituents in the Mediterranean area.Although Thymus species are used for diverse medicinal purposes, there islimited information on T. cherlerioides in the literature. After hydrodistillation,the chemical composition of the essential oil extracted from the aerial parts ofT. cherlerioides, which were collected during the flowering season in MountKazdağı, Balıkesir Province, was analyzed using gas chromatography/massspectrometry (GC-MS). A total of thirty compounds were identified, accountingfor 99.9% of the total oil. Oxygenated monoterpenes (97.1%) were the primarychemical class for the volatile organic compounds in the essential oil andα-terpinyl acetate (96.1%) was found to be the major compound. The antioxidantcapacity of the essential oil was evaluated for the first time using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and CUPRAC assays. The essential oil of T. cherlerioidesexhibited significant DPPH free radical scavenging activity compared to thestandard compounds. This study presents the first comprehensive report on theconstituents and biological activities of the essential oil of T. cherlerioides. Thiswork supports the use of T. cherlerioides essential oil in antioxidant studiesbased on natural products offering new insights into its potential for use in food,medicine, and cosmetics