Survey of 55 Turkish Salvia taxa for their acetylcholinesterase inhibitory and antioxidant activities

In the current work, our target was to screen inhibitory potentials of 55 Turkish Salvia taxa, 28 of which are endemic, against acetylcholinesterase (AChE), which is a chief enzyme in pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, and methanol extracts prepared from 55 Salvia taxa were tested for their AChE inhibitory activity at 25, 50, and 100 mu g/ml using an ELISA microplate reader. The extracts were also screened for their scavenging effect against DPPH radical and iron-chelating capacity. Total phenol and total flavonoid contents of Salvia fruticosa were determined. Among the 165 Salvia extracts screened, only the dichloromethane extract of S. fruticosa showed inhibition towards AChE at 100 mu g/ml having 51.07% of inhibition, while only the dichloromethane and ethyl acetate extracts of Salvia cilicica had a notable iron-chelating capacity at 100 mu g/ml having 54.71% of chelating capacity. Most of the extracts showed remarkable scavenging effect against DPPH radical. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.