Comparative study of the chemical profiling, antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of essential oils of different parts of Thymus willdenowii Boiss & Reut

The analysis of Thymus willdenowii Boiss & Reut essential oils (TW EOs) shows 33 components accounting for (96.3–97.7%) of all identified. The main constituents of TW EOs were thymol (35.5–47.3%), p-cymene (13.9–23.8%), γ-terpinene (8.9–20.3%). The antioxidant assays revealed that all TW EOs tested showed strong activities, the antimicrobial effect of TW EOs has been tested against isolated clinical strains of Proteus mirabilis (ATCC 35659), Escherichia coli (ATCC 25922), Candida albicans (ATCC 10231), Bacillus cereus (ATCC 10876), and Aspergillus brasilliensis (ATCC 16404). The antimicrobial test indicates that TW EOs show an inhibition effect against all the tested bacteria with a MIC of 6.9 to 27.6 μg/mL⁻¹. These results proving that the essential oils extracted from Thymus willdenowii Boiss & Reut may be a new potential source of natural antimicrobial applied in pharmaceutical and food industries.