Phytochemical Composition, Antioxidant and Antifungal Activity of Thymus capitatus, a Medicinal Plant Collected from Northern Morocco

Abstract

Thymus capitatus is a Mediterranean endemic plant commonly known as “Zaïtra” in northern Morocco. As T. capitatus is widely used in traditional medicine and food, this present work aims to investigate the chemical compositions and biological activities of the T. capitatus leaves essential oil (TcLEO), acetonic (TcLAE), and methanolic extract (TcLME). The spectrophotometric determination demonstrated that T. capitatus is a natural source rich in phenolic contents (TPC) and flavonoid contents (TFC) and that TcLME revealed the highest TPC and TFC than TcLAE and TcLEO. The LC-MS analysis of phenolic compounds showed that paraben acid was predominant in both TcLME and TcLAE, followed by cinnamic acid and p-hydroxybenzoic acid. GC-MS analysis of the TcLEO revealed the presence of a total of 10 compounds, which were predominated by carvacrol. The antioxidant activity by ORAC was observed to be significantly higher in TcLEO and TcLAE than in TcLME. All samples used to assess DNA degradation effectively prevented DNA oxidation and, at the same time, had a prooxidant effect. The genotoxicity test showed that the T. capitatus were devoid of any mutagenic activity. Concerning antifungal activity, all samples were able to inhibit the growth of all microorganisms tested at low concentrations. TcLAE showed higher activity than TcLME, and in general, dermatophytes were more susceptible, being Microsporum canis the most sensitive one. Overall, the results obtained from this study confirm the wide uses of T. capitatus. Furthermore, the finding results suggest that the T. capitatus essential oil and extracts can be highly useful for pharmaceutical industries.

Extracts and Fractions with antifungal potential for the treatment of hair disorders

“…In addition, the methanolic extract presented MIC values of 0.52-1.25 mg/mL and MFC values of 0.63-2.08 mg/mL and the acetone extract MIC 0.73-2.5 mg/mL and MFC 1.10-9.17 mg/mL. Therefore, it is assumed that the presence of compounds such as carvacrol, o-cymene and α-paraben, as they are the most frequent, are responsible for the activity against M. canis (Benoutman et al, 2022).…”

Atividade antifúngica de óleos essenciais frente a cepa de Candida albicans

“…Em diversas espécies de plantas é possível extrair bioativos com atividades antifúngica, antibacteriana e antioxidantes (Ingok et al, 2020, Benoutman et al, 2022. Entre eles, os óleos essenciais (OE) apresentam efetividade sobre cepas fungicas (D'agostino et al, 2019).…”

Antioxidant Response to Seasonal Changes in Thymus Capitatus (L.)

“…Recently, the essential oils of Thymus species T are widely used in food industries to increase the shelf-life (Martínez et al, 2018), perfumes, cosmetic and medicinal purposes (Hazzit et al, 2009) and in some biological properties viz. antioxidant, antifungal and antibacterial (Masaada et al, 2015;Casiglia et al, 2019;Benoutman et al, 2022 andTagnaout et al, 2022). The use of this plant is common as a natural source of antioxidants, as plants are rich in phenolic and flavonoid compounds (Jabri-Karouia et al, 2012 andBenoutman et al, 2022).…”

“…antioxidant, antifungal and antibacterial (Masaada et al, 2015;Casiglia et al, 2019;Benoutman et al, 2022 andTagnaout et al, 2022). The use of this plant is common as a natural source of antioxidants, as plants are rich in phenolic and flavonoid compounds (Jabri-Karouia et al, 2012 andBenoutman et al, 2022).…”

“…Although there are some studies confirmed that T. capitatus has antioxidant properties (Masaada et al, 2015;Benoutman et al, 2022 andTagnaout et al, 2022), the information generated is not enough, especially in the antioxidant enzymes system. Thus, our study aims to determine enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants as affected by seasonal changes in T. capitatus growing naturally at Wadi Habis (west Matruh, Egypt) during winter and summer seasons.…”