New Insight into the Chemical Composition, Antimicrobial and Synergistic Effects of the Moroccan Endemic Thymus atlanticus (Ball) Roussine Essential Oil in Combination with Conventional Antibiotics.

This study reported the volatile profile, the antimicrobial activity and the synergistic potential of essential oil (EO) from the Moroccan endemic (Ball) Roussine, in combination with the antibiotics ciprofloxacin and fluconazole for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. The EO chemical composition was determined by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis and the antimicrobial activity assessed by the disc diffusion method against three Gram positive (, , ) and three Gram-negative bacteria (, and one clinical isolate, ). The antifungal activity was evaluated in four pathogenic yeasts (, , ). The minimum inhibition concentration (MIC) and the synergistic effect with ciprofloxacin and fluconazole were determined by the two-fold dilution technique and checkerboard test, respectively. Twenty-one constituents were identified by GC-MS in the EO, including carvacrol (21.62%) and borneol (21.13%) as the major components. The EO exhibited a significant antimicrobial activity with inhibition zones ranging from 0.7 mm to 22 mm for and , respectively, and MIC values varying from 0.56 mg/mL to 4.47 mg/mL. The fractional inhibitory concentration index (FICI) values ranged from 0.25 to 0.50 for bacteria and from 0.25 to 0.28 for yeasts. The maximum synergistic effect was observed for with a 256-fold gain of antibiotic MIC. Our results have suggested that EO from may be used alone or in association with antibiotics as a new potential alternative to prevent and control the emergence of resistant microbial strains both in the medical field and in the food industry.