Chemical Profiling and Antioxidant Activity of Wild and Cultivated Sage (Salvia officinalis L.) Essential Oil

Abstract

Chemical profiling the sage essential oils (SEOs) from wild and cultivated (shaded or non-shaded) plants has been investigated. The yield of SEOs from wild plants (3.51 mL/100 g) was higher than that from cultivated plants(shaded plants: 3.20 mL/100 g and non-shaded plants: 2.56 mL/100 g).The main components of SEO from wild plants were cis-thujone (43.2%), camphor (17.6%), 1,8-cineole (13.8%), veridiflorol (3.8%) and borneol (3.4%).The chemical composition of SEO from cultivated plants included camphor > cis-thujone > 1,8-cineole. Net shading lowered the content of toxic cis-thujone in sage (23.5%) and is therefore recommended in order to achieve better quality of SEO compared to non-shaded plants (cis-thujone 28.3%).The thujone content of SEO from wild plants is much higher (43.2%), and this drastically reduces the quality of EO. Cultivated sage was found to have stronger antioxidant activity (shaded plants 6.16 mg/mL or non-shaded 7.49 ± 0.13 mg/mL) compared to wild sage plants (9.65 mg/mL). The isolated SEOs are good sources of natural antioxidants with potential applications in the food and pharmaceutical industries.