Evaluation of chemical properties and antimicrobial effect of Thymus trautvetteri essential oil on a number of bacteria causing infection and food poisoning: a laboratory study

Chemical properties and antimicrobial effect of Thymus trautvetteri essential oil against some of the bacteria causing infection and food poisoning were evaluated in this study. For this purpose, T. trautvetteri essential oil was extracted with the help of hydrodistillation method and its total phenol content was based on Folin-Ciocalteu method, its antioxidant activity was based on DPPH and ABTS free radical inhibition methods and its antibacterial effect against Escherichia coli, Shigella dysenteriae, Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus were investigated based on disc diffusion agar, well diffusion agar, minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal concentration methods. The results showed that T. trautvetteri essential oil contained 6.27 mg of catechin/g total phenol and its inhibitory activity against DPPH and ABTS free radicals was obtained as 12.32 and 10.20 mg/ml, respectively. The results of the antibacterial activity of the essential oil showed that S. aureus and E. coli were the most sensitive and resistant bacterial strains against T. trautvetteri essential oil, respectively. The inhibition zone in the disc diffusion agar and well diffusion agar methods, and the minimum inhibitory and bactericidal concentrations for S. aureus were 14.60 mm, 16 mm, 1 mg/ml and 4 mg/ml, respectively. According to the findings of this research, T. trautvetteri essential oil can be used as a natural antioxidant and antimicrobial agent to prevent oxidative reactions and microbial spoilage in food.