Profiling of compositions of essential oils and volatiles of Salvia limbata using traditional and advanced techniques and evaluation for biological activities of their extracts

In the present work, the essential oils and volatiles from flowers, leaves, and stems of Salvia limbata obtained using microwave-assisted hydrodistillation, solvent-free microwave extraction, headspace-assisted analysis, and headspace-solid phase microextraction have been characterized for the first time. The results have been also compared with those from traditional separation techniques involving hydrodistillation and steam distillation. Regardless of some common compounds in all of the profiles, some dissimilarities were noted due to the use of different extracting approaches. Taking into account the chemical categories, sesquiterpene hydrocarbons were found as the most represented group of natural compounds contributing to the chemical profiles. It was also noted that the methanol extracts obtained from the flowers of Sal. limbata showed a desirable antioxidant activity, comparable to the standard antioxidant butylated hydroxytoluene. Furthermore, using the disc diffusion and broth microdilution methods, all the tested bacteria demonstrated weak to moderate and moderate to strong sensibilities to the MeOH extracts obtained from different plant parts of Salvia limbata