Determination of in vitro antioxidant activities and phenolic compounds of different extracts of Salvia verticillata ssp. verticillata and spp. amasiaca from Turkey’s flora

This study was designed to evaluate the in vitro antioxidant activities of hexane, dichloromethane and methanol extracts of Salvia verticillata ssp. verticillata and spp. amasiaca. The samples were subjected to screening for their possible antioxidant activity by using 2,2diphenyl-1-picriylhydrazyl (DPPH) and β-carotene/linoleic acid assays. The methanol extracts particularly found to posses strong antioxidant activities (IC50= 16.0 ± 3.01 and 12.1 ± 3.82 mg ml, respectively) whereas the dichloromethane extracts showed low activities. In the linoleic acid system, oxidation of the linoleic acid was moderately inhibited by the methanol extracts (61.3 ± 5.38 and 68.7 ± 1.82 %, respectively). Also, in methanol extracts of these plants have been determined amount of 9 phenolic compounds in different proportions and identified by the RP-HPLC method. These plants have high level of rosmarinic acid (37.1 and 24.83 mg/g, respectively) when compared with other components. Amounts of caffeic acid were determined as 9.82 and 8.69 mg/g, respectively. Our results showed that the high levels of rosmarinic and caffeic acid are more likely to be responsible for most of the observed antioxidant activities of Salvia species.