REVIEW article
Front. Mol. Biosci.
Sec. Metabolomics
This article is part of the Research TopicMetabolomic Analysis of Plant Matrices: Identification of Compounds of Therapeutic and Nutraceutical InterestView all articles
Bioactive Chemical Composition and Pharmacological Insights into Salvia Species
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Plant Biology Institute of Biology, Faculty of Biology and Animal Science, Uniwersytet Przyrodniczy we Wroclawiu, Wrocław, Poland
- 2Department of Food Chemistry and Biocatalysis, Uniwersytet Przyrodniczy we Wroclawiu, Wrocław, Poland
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Salvia is a genus of Lamiaceae family with more than 1000 species having diverse utility. The wide range of uses encompasses food, flavor, cosmetics, aromatherapy, horticulture, and medicine. It has been attributed to the presence of bioactive compounds belonging to essential oils, phenolic compounds, and flavonoids that are extensively studied using spectroscopic and chromatographic techniques. This review aims to investigate in-depth previously published literature from 2020 to 2025 on 59 Salvia species. It was performed with several key search words focused on the chemical compounds in Salvia spp. and their pharmacological efficacy. Salvia species were enriched with essential oils comprising important components: α-pinene, β-pinene, limonene, linalool, caryophyllene, germacrene, myrcene, α-thujone, and humulene. Potential health benefits owing to anticancer, antioxidant, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, antithrombotic, antirheumatic, and antiviral properties were reported from Salvia species. Salvia phytochemicals have been studied as regulating anticancer mechanisms at the cellular level by effectively modulating host cell responses in multiple ways. This review summarizes and discusses recent studies on the metabolite profiling of Salvia plants and bioactivities of the extracts and compounds. It may provide future perspectives on the in silico and pharmacognostic studies on potent Salvia compounds. Isolation and evaluation of bioactive compounds from the least studied species is recommended.
Keywords: Medicinal plants1, Salvia2, Plant extracts3, secondary metabolites4, Essentialoils5, Salvianolic acid6
Received: 01 Aug 2025; Accepted: 19 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Afzal, Proćków and Lyczko. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jarosław Proćków, jaroslaw.prockow@upwr.edu.pl
Jacek Lyczko, jacek.lyczko@upwr.edu.pl
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