Nutrients and Constituents Relevant to Antioxidant, Antimicrobial and Anti-Breast Cancer Properties of Salvia officinalis L.

Objective: Comprehensive assessment of the chemical composition of sage leaves (Salvia officinalis L.) in order to highlight constituents relevant to the antioxidant, antimicrobial and anticancer potentials, in addition to determining safe dose to facilitate its application in functional foods and dairy products.

Methods: High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) was employed to determine constituents such as amino acids, fatty acids and phenolic compounds content. Antioxidant activity was characterized using, α- diphenyl-β-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and reducing power methods. The antimicrobial potentials were examined against nine pathogenic strains. MDA-MB-231 cell line was used to assess anticancer activity.

Results: Sage was found to be a good source of calcium, iron and zinc (894.3, 84 and 5.5 mg/ 100 g respectively) and vitamins B6 and B12 (1.5 and 0.3 mg/100 g respectively). Performed HPLC analysis indicated the rich content of essential amino acids, lysine, phenylalanine and leucine (10.4, 0.7 and 0.45 g/100 g), unsaturated fatty acids, Omega 3, 6 and 9 (6.46, 4.40 and 3.13 g/ 100 g) and phenolic compounds, quercetin and cinnamic (604.8 and 390.4 μg/mL), which interpreted its high antioxidant powers. Sage revealed antioxidant potentials with IC50 and EC50 reached (27.5 and 239.5 mg/mL respectively), and antimicrobial effect against the examined pathogenic strains with MICs reached 6.25 mm against Staph. aureus, E. coli and Candida albicans, not to mention its anticancer effect as an extra pharmacological feature, when sage performed an anti-proliferative activity with IC50 of 300 µg/mL, against MDA-MB-231 cell line.

Conclusion: Obtained results emphasis the sage leaves content of variable nutrients and active compounds that reflected on its vast nutritional and pharmacological potentials such as; antioxidant, antimicrobial and cytotoxic effect against breast MDA-MB-231 cell line, that could nominate it as applicable food bio-preservative in functional foods and dairy products.