HPLC-DAD Screening and Antioxidant Activity of Phenolic Compounds of Salvia balansae de Noé Leaves Extract

Abstract

Salvia balansae de Noé is known to be an important source of a wide variety of non-toxic bioactive compounds with lack of information hinders exploitation in food and pharmaceutical industries as natural antioxidants. In this work, the phenolic compounds from S. balansae leaves were extracted using an ultrasound-assisted methodology and were separated and identified by HPLC-DAD. The antioxidant activity was evaluated by ABTS, and DPPH scavenging assays, Iron (Fe2+) Chelating ability and reducing power (FRAP) tests. The total phenolic compounds (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC) were found with amounts of 49.63 ± 6.31 mg GAE/g DW and 8.14 ± 0.39 mg QE/g DW respectively. The ABTS, DPPH assays and metal chelating ability test demonstrated a higher antioxidant properties with IC50 values of 328.95 ± 5.29 µg/mL, 545.03 ± 3.27 µg/mL and 689.40 ± 0.86 µg/mL respectively. The reducing power at 700 nm increased considerably with concentration. In addition, the HPLC-DAD analysis showed that there were twelve detectable phenolic compounds and the benzoic acid, quercetin, myrecetin, hydroxyflavon, and ascorbic acid have been exclusively identified for the first time in S. balansae leaves extract and are rarely determined in other Salvia L. species. Therefore, these results provided new data about the main phenolic compounds present in S. balansae leaves extract with a strong antioxidant potential, which will be an alternative source for synthetic compounds.