Thymus vulgaris essential oil: chemical composition and antimicrobial activity • JML Journal of Medicine and Life

2014, Volume 7, Issue Spec Iss 3, pp 56 – 60

Thymus vulgaris essential oil: chemical composition and antimicrobial activity

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Authors and Affiliations

Borugă O ^*

Jianu C ^**

Mişcă C ^**

Goleţ I ^***

Gruia AT ^****

Horhat FG ^*****

* *Department of Ophthalmology, Victor Babeș University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Timișoara, Romania

** **Department of Food Science, Faculty of Food Processing Technology, Banat’s University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Timișoara, Romania

*** ***Department of Management, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, West University of Timișoara, Timișoara, Romania

**** ****Center for Transplant Immunology, Timișoara County Hospital, Timișoara, Romania

***** *****Department of Microbiology, Victor Babes University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Timisoara, Romania

Correspondence to:Călin Jianu, MD, Department of Food Science, Faculty of Food Processing Technology, Banat's University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine 119 Calea Aradului, RO-300645, Timisoara, Romania Mobile phone: 0040722632199, E-mail: calin.jianu@gmail.com

Abstract

The study was designed to determine the chemical composition and antimicrobial properties of the essential oil of Thymus vulgaris cultivated in Romania. The essential oil was isolated in a yield of 1.25% by steam distillation from the aerial part of the plant and subsequently analyzed by GC-MS. The major components were p-cymene (8.41%), γ-terpinene (30.90%) and thymol (47.59%). Its antimicrobial activity was evaluated on 7 common food-related bacteria and fungus by using the disk diffusion method. The results demonstrate that the Thymus vulgaris essential oil tested possesses strong antimicrobial properties, and may in the future represent a new source of natural antiseptics with applications in the pharmaceutical and food industry.

Keywords

thymeessential oilGC-MS analysisantimicrobial activity

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About this article

PMC ID: 4391421
PubMed ID: 25870697
DOI:

Article Publishing Date (print): 2014
Available Online:

Journal information

ISSN Printing: 1844-122X
ISSN Online: 1844-3117
Journal Title: Journal of Medicine and Life

Copyright License: Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.