Abstract
Background: It has been recently recognized that oxidative stress, helminth and microbial infections are the cause
of much illness found in the underdeveloped, developing and developed countries. The present study was
undertaken to identify the chemical composition, and to assess anthelmintic, antimicrobial and antioxidant effects
of Thymus bovei essential oil.
Methods: The chemical composition of the essential oil was analyzed using gas chromatography mass spectrometry
(GC-MS). Antimicrobial activity was tested against the selected strains from American Type Culture Collection (ATCC)
and clinical isolates such as Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Methicillin Resistant
Staphylococcus aureus, Candida albicans using MIC assay. The anthelmintic assay was carried out on adult earthworm
(Pheretima posthuma), while antioxidant activity was analyzed using the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free
radical scavenging method.
Results: Trans-geraniol (35.38 %), α-citral (20.37 %) and β-citral (14.76 %) were the major compounds comprising 70.
51 % of the essential oil. Our results showed that T. bovei essential oil exhibited strong anthelmintic activity, even
higher than piperazine citrate, the used reference standard, with potential antioxidant activity almost equal to the
Trolox standard. Furthermore, T. bovei essential oil had powerful antibacterial and antifungal activities against the
studied pathogens.
Conclusion: Essential oil of T. bovei exerted excellent antioxidant, antimicrobial, and anthelmintic activities.
Moreover, this study found that T. bovei volatile oil contains active substances that could potentially be used
as natural preservatives in food and pharmaceutical industries, these substances could also be employed for
developing new anthelmintic, antimicrobial and antioxidant agents.
Keywords: Thymus bovei, Essential oil, Antioxidant, Anthelmintic, Antimicrobial

Title

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Publisher

BioMed Central

Publisher Country

United Kingdom

Indexing

Thomson Reuters

Impact Factor

2.228

Publication Type

Prtinted only

Volume

16

Year

216

Pages

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