Chemical composition and antimicrobial activity of the essential oil of wild Thymus vulgaris grown in South Jordan

Abstract

There is a high variability in chemical composition of essential oil from Thymus vulgaris grown in different countries and different localities in the same country. Only three reports were published on the essential oil composition of Thymus vulgaris grown in Jordan and non of them reported from South Jordan. The current study aims to determine the essential oil composition of Thymus vulgaris grown wild in South Jordan and to test their activity against clinical isolate antibiotics resistant bacteria. The composition of the essential oil from Thymus vulgaris was determined using GC-MS while the screening for essential oil activity was carried out using disc diffusion method. The results of GC-MS produced forty-eight components of the oil representing more than 97% of the oil contents, monoterpenes being most abundant (about 85%) with thymol (37.05%), cis-dihydrocarvone (9.34%), carvacrol (8.45%), hydroxy-3-(3-methyl-2-butenyl)-3-cyclopenten-1-one (8.41%), p-cymene (5.73%), cis-sabinene (4.42%), z-isoeugenol (3.342%), and aromadendrene (3.42%) as major constituents. The essential oil from Thymus vulgaris was found to be active against all the tested bacteria except in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The high concentrations of thymol and carvacrol may account for its high activity against resistant bacteria.