Exudate composition of Salvia elegans Vahl. (Lamiaceae).

Salvia elegans Vahl is a Mexican species belonging to subgenus Calosphace, section Incarnatae [1], widely used in Mexican traditional medicine for alleviate central nervous system ailments, stomach aches wounds, and post-partum pain [2]. The leaves of S. elegans exude a sweet pineapple scent [2], and its essential oil has been described [3].The hydroalcoholic extract of this species has shown anxiolytic and antidepressant effects [4]; this extract has been fractionated revealing the presence of ursolic, oleanolic and 3β,23- dihydroxyolean-12-en-28-oic acids, together with 3-acetoxy-7-methoxyflavone [5]. As a secoisopimarane diterpenoid previously isolated by us from the exudate material of Salvia cinnabarina M. Martens et Galeotti exerted antispasmodic [6] hypotensive [7], anxiolytic [8] and antimutagenic [9] activity, in this work we investigated the exudate of S. elegans as this species is closely related to S. cinnabarina in order to verify if also this species produced this compound. The surface exudate, obtained by rinsing the aerial parts of S. elegans with CH2Cl2, was extracted with n-hexane. The "hexane-soluble" fraction was then subjected to repeated column chromatography on Sephadex LH-20 eluting with CHCl3/CH3OH 7:3 and silica gel, eluting with n-hexane/CHCl3/CH3OH from 100:0:0 to 0:0:100, and to HPLC-MS followed by semi-preparative RP-HPLC (Waters, uBondapack RP18, 5 um, 10 × 250 mm, isocratic conditions: eluent CH3OH/H2O 70:30). 3,4-secoisopimara-4(18),7,15-triene-3-oic acid previously isolated by S. cinnabarina was obtained [6] along with trans-communic acid [10], ursolic acid and spathulenol [3], and identified by IR, 1D and 2D-NMR experiments, HR-MS analysis and by comparison with literature data.