Determination of chemical profiles and antioxidant activity of the essential oil of Thymus cherlerioides Vis.

İngilizce (OpenAlex)

Thymus species is one of the most important medicinal plants due to its ethnobotanical uses and bioactive constituents in the Mediterranean area. Although Thymus species are used for diverse medicinal purposes, there is limited information on T. cherlerioides in the literature. After hydrodistillation, the chemical composition of the essential oil extracted from the aerial parts of T. cherlerioides, which were collected during the flowering season in Mount Kazdağı, Balıkesir Province, was analyzed using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS). A total of thirty compounds were identified, accounting for 99.9% of the total oil. Oxygenated monoterpenes (97.1%) were the primary chemical class for the volatile organic compounds in the essential oil and α-terpinyl acetate (96.1%) was found to be the major compound. The antioxidant capacity of the essential oil was evaluated for the first time using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and CUPRAC assays. The essential oil of T. cherlerioides exhibited significant DPPH free radical scavenging activity compared to the standard compounds. This study presents the first comprehensive report on the constituents and biological activities of the essential oil of T. cherlerioides. This work supports the use of T. cherlerioides essential oil in antioxidant studies based on natural products offering new insights into its potential for use in food, medicine, and cosmetics.