Evaluation of clonal herbs of Lamiaceae species for management of diabetes and hypertension.

In the current study, we screened 7 clonal lines from single seed phenotypes of Lamiaceae family for the inhibition of alpha-amylase, alpha-glucosidase and angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory activity. Water extracts of oregano had the highest alpha-glucosidase inhibition activity (93.7%), followed by chocolate mint (85.9%) and lemon balm (83.9%). Sage (78.4 %), and three different clonal lines of rosemary: rosemary LA (71.4%), rosemary 6 (68.4%) and rosemary K-2 (67.8%) also showed significant alpha-glucosidase inhibitory activity. The alpha-glucosidase inhibitory activity of the extracts was compared to selected specific phenolics detected in the extracts using HPLC. Catechin had the highest alpha-glucosidase inhibitiory activity (99.6 %) followed by caffeic acid (91.3 %), rosmarinic acid (85.1%) and resveratrol (71.1 %). Catechol (64.4%), protocatechuic acid (55.7%) and quercetin (36.9%) also exhibited significant alpha-glucosidase inhibitory activity. Results suggested that alpha-glucosidase inhibitory activity of the clonal extracts correlated to the phenolic content, antioxidant activity and phenolic profile of the extracts. The clonal extracts of the herbs and standard phenolics tested in this study did not have any effect on the alpha-amylase activity. We also investigated the ability of the clonal extracts to inhibit rabbit lung angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE). The water extracts of rosemary, rosemary LA had the highest ACE inhibitory activity (90.5%), followed by lemon balm (81.9%) and oregano (37.4 %). Lower levels of ACE inhibition were observed with ethanol extracts of oregano (18.5 %) and lemon balm (0.5 %). Among the standard phenolics only resveratrol (24.1 %), hydroxybenzoic acid (19.3 %) and coumaric acid (2.3 %) had ACE inhibitory activity.