Phytochemicals screening, cytotoxicity and antioxidant activity of the Origanum majorana growing in Casablanca, Morocco

Origanum majorana L. is a medicinal plant of the Lamiaceae family, knowing as Zaatar in traditional Moroccan medicine [2]. This plant is distributed around the Mediterranean regions, Asia, and North Africa, in particular, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Spain, and Portugal [3]. Origanum majorana showed various biological activities such as allergies, fever, hypertension [4,5], respiratory infections [6], antidiabetic [7], painful menstruation, Kidney Yang defi ciency, stomach ache, cough [8], rheumatism, headache, insomnia [9], also in intestinal antispasmodic [10]. Moreover, Origanum majorana L. exhibits a wide effect spectrum with antioxidant, antibacterial, antifungal, nephroprotective, anti-proliferative, anti-cancer activities [11-16]. These effects are mediated by the presence of bioactive compounds such as thymol, carvacrol, tannins, hydroquinone, sitosterol, cis-sabinene hydrate, limonene, terpinene, camphene, and fl avonoids like diosmetin, quercetin, luteolin, and apigenin [17,18].