Essential oil composition, total phenolic content, antioxidant and antibiofilm activities of four Origanum species from southeastern Turkey

This study reports a comparative screening of four species of Origanum in Turkey, based on their essential oil composition, total phenolic content, antioxidant and antibiofilm activities. The major components of essential oils were p-cymene, linalool, and thymol. The total phenolic contents differed from 3.81 to 47.54mg of GAE/g of extract. The concentrations of flavonoids varied from 12.74 to 58.39mg of Ru/g of extract. Antioxidant activity was determined in vitro using DPPH reagent and expressed as concentration of each extract required to inhibit radical by 50% (IC50) values that ranged from 16.03 to 48.94 g/ml. Our results indicated that chloroform extracts of species O. majorana and O. onites, with a total content of polyphenols (47.54mg of GAE/g and 45.17mg of GAE/g, respectively) and an IC50 of 16.03 g/ml and 16.89 g/ml, respectively were more antioxidant. Among the essential oil concentrations tested, maximum antibiofilm activity was found as 92.24% against M. luteus NRRL-B 1013 by O. majorana essential oil at 50mg/ml.