In Vitro and In Silico Evaluation of ACE2 and LOX Inhibitory Activity of Origanum Essential Oils and Carvacrol.

spp. are used both for culinary purposes and for their biological activities. In this study, commercial , and essential oils and their prominent constituent carvacrol were evaluated for their and angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 and lipoxygenase enzyme inhibitory potentials. The essential oils were analysed by gas chromatography-flame ionisation detection and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, where carvacrol was identified as the major component (62 - 81%), confirming the quality. enzyme inhibition assays were conducted both with the essential oils (20 µg/mL) and with carvacrol (5 µg/mL). The comparative values of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 percent inhibition for , and essential oils were determined as 85.5, 79.1, 74.3, and 42.8%, respectively. As a result of the enzyme assays, carvacrol showed 90.7% angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 inhibitory activity. The lipoxygenase inhibition of the essential oils (in the same order) was 89.4, 78.9, 81.1, and 73.5%, respectively, where carvacrol showed 74.8% inhibition. In addition, protein-ligand docking and interaction profiling was used to gain structural and mechanistic insights into the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 and lipoxygenase inhibitory potentials of major essential oil constituents. The findings agreed with the significant enzyme inhibition activity observed . Further studies are suggested to confirm the safety and efficacy of the oils.