Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 18 pp 21975—21990

Figure 1. (A) Morphological features of TS plant samples at different phenological stages and structures of main components of the essential oil detected by GC/MS and FTIR. (B) Percentage of cancer cell viability after treatment with various concentrations of Thymus hirtus Ssp. algeriensis (TS) for different time points (0, 24, 48 and 72 hrs); * = statistical significance; P˂0.05. (C) TS sensitizes TRAIL-induced cytotoxicity. Briefly, HCT116 cells (5 × 10³ cells/well) were seeded in triplicate in 96-well plates. The cells were exposed to different concentrations of thyme volatile oil (0, 0.01 or 0.05 μl/ml) for 12 h, the medium was removed, and tumor cells were then incubated with 25 ng/ml TRAIL for additional 24 h. Cell viability was then determined by the MTT assay. (D) Effect of TS on RAW cell viability. RAW 264.7 cells, seeded in triplicate in 96-well plates, were exposed to different concentrations of TS (0, 0.001, 0.005, 0.01 or 0.05 μl/mL) and incubated for 24 h, 48 h and 72 h. Cell viability was analyzed with the MTT assay.