Phytochemical study of plants and plant cell cultures of three Salvia Species

The genus Salvia L. is widely distributed cultivated in various regions all over the world because of his numerous biological and pharmacological properties. These positive effects have its source in the high diversity of their secondary metabolites and enable its application on pharmaceutical, cosmetics and food industries. The main activities namely adstringent, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and antioxidative are effected for instance by the essential oils as well as phenolic acids, sterols and higher terpenoids. Beside cultivation parameters, the composition of these secondary metabolites is mainly affected by the species. According to their interesting spectrum of secondary metabolites, S. officinalis L., S. triloba L.f. and S. virgata Jacq. were selected for the induction of in vitro cultures. Since the traditional production of selected secondary metabolites by plant is influenced by various parameters like climate, geological conditions and infestation by parasites, the application of plant cell and tissue cultures in vitro reveal a potential alternative. In this case cultivation can be conducted under defined and optimized conditions in a bioreactor without the need of herbizides.

Different phytochemical methods including extraction, isolation and chromatography techniques were applied on both the plants and their in vitro cultures in order to compare their secondary metabolite production. Therefore GC/MS analysis was performed for the identification and structure determination of present secondary metabolites. The observed results of these experiments will be presented.

Acknowledgement: This work has been supported by European Social Funds and the Free State of Saxony, project number 080938406.