Phenolic acids and flavonoids from Salvia plebeia and HPLC-UV profiling of four Salvia species

We isolated and purified phenolic acids and flavonoids from the ethanolic extract of Salvia plebeia using silica gel and a Sephadex LH-20 column chromatography. Spectroscopy revealed the isolated compounds were caffeic acid, rosmarinic acid, hispidulin, luteolin, jaceosidin, nepitrin, homoplantaginin, 6-hydroxyluteolin 7-O-glucoside, 6-methoxynaringenin 7-O-glucoside, naasanone, and cosmosiin. Quantitative analyses, using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with UV (HPLC-UV), revealed that the major flavonoid from S. plebeia was 6-hydroxyluteolin 7-O-glucoside (100.63 mg/g) and the most abundant phenolic acid was rosmarinic acid (47.73 mg/g). Furthermore, among four other Salvia species, S. officinalis contained the highest overall phenolic acid and flavonoid level but these were still lower than S. plebeia. These results can help assess the potential of phenolic acids and flavonoids as potent sources of pharmacological ingredients from different Salvia species extracts.