Phytochemical Profiling and Evaluation of Antioxidant and Enzyme Inhibitory Activities of Selected Endemic Salvia Species (Lamiaceae) From Türkiye.

Salvia (Lamiaceae) species have been used in food, cosmetics, and medicine for centuries. Besides their use as food, these species are potential raw material candidates for pharmaceuticals due to their rich phytochemical content. Studies on the endemic Turkish Salvia species examined in this study, S. ballsiana (Rech.f.) Hedge, S. hedgeana Dönmez, and S. vermifolia Hedge & Hub.-Mor., are very limited. The aim of this study is to evaluate the antioxidant, antidiabetic, and anti-obesity effects of these species and to elucidate their chemical profiles. In this context, the antidiabetic effect was determined by α-glucosidase and α-amylase inhibitory activity tests, and the anti-obesity effect was determined by the pancreatic lipase inhibitory activity test. The chemical profiles of the extracts were determined by LC-MS/MS. S. vermifolia and S. hedgeana demonstrated strong α-glucosidase inhibitory activity (IC50 values of 36.46 ± 1.25 and 52.89 ± 3.36 μg/mL, respectively). Among the extracts, the strongest α-amylase and pancreatic lipase inhibitory activity was found in the S. vermifolia extract (IC50 values 68.38 ± 4.27 and 89.46 ± 6.80 μg/mL, respectively). Additionally, the reference compounds acarbose and orlistat exhibited stronger inhibitory activity than all extracts: acarbose showed IC50 values of 1.52 ± 0.15 and 2.99 ± 0.04 μg/mL for α-glucosidase and α-amylase, respectively, while orlistat demonstrated pancreatic lipase inhibition with an IC50 value of 11.82 ± 2.54 μg/mL. S. vermifolia extract demonstrated strong metal chelation capacity, ABTS and DPPH radical scavenging activity (65.50%, 70.73% and 83.80%, respectively). Rosmarinic acid was found to be major phytoconstituent of the species with the highest inhibition potency on enzymes (S. vermifolia). Binding potential and mode of action for rosmarinic acid were explored through molecular docking. Results that corroborated the enzymatic assay studies were obtained.