Cytotoxic activities of Salvia plants of the Labiatae family

Eight crude extracts of five Salvia species were evaluated for cytotoxic activities against brine shrimps and four human cancer cell lines [human colon adenocarcinoma (HCA), HepG2, MCF-7, and human pancreatic carcinoma (HPC) along with a normal mouse cell line (areolar cells)] as a control. In the brine shrimp lethality test, all samples, except S. fruticosa L. (Sifnos collection) and S. verbenaca L. (Zante collection), were found to be highly active with ED50 values less than 300 mug/ml. In the case of human cancer cell lines, S. fruticosa, collected from Kalymnos and Crete, were active against HCA cells with LC50 = 60.4 and 40.1 mug/ml respectively. Interestingly, only one sample, S. fruticosa collected from Kalymnos, was active against HepG2 cells with LC50 = 68.1 mug/ml. In the case of MCF-7 cells, S. fruticosa collected from three different locations (Kalymnos, Rhodos, and Crete) showed similar activity with LC50 = 43.1, 41. 1, and 42.3 mug/ml, respectively. All S. fruticosa samples were found to be cytotoxic toward a normal mouse cell line when tested at 0. 1 mg/ml. All the other samples had LC50 values greater than 75 mug/ml, and were considered to be inactive.