Study on chemical composition and antimicrobial activity of the essential oil of thymus Trautvetteri Klokov and Desj - Shost

The genus Thymus belongs to Lamiaceae family. This genus is comprised of about 350 species widespread in the world. 14 species exist in Iran of which four are endemic. In this study chemical compounds and antibactrial activity in essential oil of Thymus trautvetteri was identified. Thymus trautvetteri has been collected from the highlands of Ardabil province in June 2006. Then air-dried aerial parts of the plant were submitted to hydrodistillation using a Clevenger apparatus to produce the essential oil and the extract was analysed by GC/MASS. Investigation of antimicrobial activity was conducted by Disc-diffusion, MIC and MBC technique and different antibiotics compared with antimicrobial activity of this essential oil. Results: In this study, 49 constituents were found representing 99.76% of the oil. The major components were thymol [24.43%], borneol [11.36%], para-cymene [10.09%] and gamma-terpinene [7.78%], alpha-pinene [5.29%] and carvacrol [5.07%]. The antibacterial activity of essential oil of this plant was assayed against seven bacteria and Staphylococcus aureus resulted to be the most sensitive microorganism with a MIC value of 125 micro g/ml. This study showed that essential oil of this plant have strong inhibitory and bactricidal effects against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. Identification of chemical compounds of this species showed that thymol represented the most abundant compounds as the other Thymus species. The antimicrobial activity of essential oil of Thymus trautvetteri can be attributed of thymol and other terpenoides compounds