ANTIOXIDANT AND ANTITUMOR ACTIVITIES OF THE ESSENTIAL OIL AND ETHANOLIC EXTRACT OF THYME (Thymus vulgaris L.) LEAVES

Abdel- Moein,, Nadia M.; Mahmoud, Ebtesam A.; Abdei- Fatah, O. M.; Hanfy, Eman A.

doi:10.21608/jssae.2006.236939

ANTIOXIDANT AND ANTITUMOR ACTIVITIES OF THE ESSENTIAL OIL AND ETHANOLIC EXTRACT OF THYME (Thymus vulgaris L.) LEAVES

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University

10.21608/jssae.2006.236939

Abstract

The present study was conducted to evaluate the antioxidant and antitumor
activities of the essential oil and ethanolic extract of thyme (Thymus vulgan's) leaves
The antioxidant test results showed that the essential oil strongly reduced the
thiobarbituric acid (TBA) values at 100, 200, 400 and 1000 ppm concentrations and it
was more effective than thymol and BHT at a concentration of 1000 ppm. The
ethanolic extract was able to reduce the TBA values, which were lower than those of
essential oil, thymol and BHT The viability of Ehrlich ascites carcinoma cells (EACC)
with essential oil and ethanolic extract at different concentrations was examined. it
was found that incubation of tumor cells with essential oil reduced the viability of
these cells and the dead cells produced by this oil reached 100% by concentrations
over 200 ppm, while the ethanolic extract was lower than essential oil compared
with thymol. Also, effect of essential oil and thymol at concentrations of 200 and 400
ppm on the survival of tumor bearing mice in the same time and after a week of
injection with EACC was studied. The essential oil gave a higher cytotoxic effect than
thymol whereas different treatment showed significant increase in the life span of
tumor bearing mice compared with untreated tumor control. _
The chemical composition of essential oil and ethanolic extract were analyzed
by GC and HPLC. The essential oil comprised of 18 constituents representing
91.42% of the oil. Carvacrol (28.98%), limonene (25.17%), 7 - terpinene (10.86%),
terpeniol (9.73%), [3- caryOphyllene (7.81%), linalool (2.83%) and thymol (2 12%)were
the major components comprising 84.64% of the oil. The ethanolic extract was
analyzed by HPLC system. Data showed that T vuigaris characterized by the
presence of a high content of p-coumaric acid (39.80%), vanillin (24.34%) and
moreover. cafﬁc acid (5.09%) and Ferulic acid (4.04%) were also detected Results
presented here may suggest that the essential oil of T. vuigari's can be used in
pharmaceutical industries for its potential medicinal properties including antioxidant,
protective and anticarcinogenic effects.

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