Comparative study of seventeen Salvia plants: aldose reductase inhibitory activity of water and MeOH extracts and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis of water extracts.

The dry root and rhizome of Salvia miltiorhiza (Lamiaceae) are used as a crude drug Danshen, while those of S. deserta (Xinjiang-Danshen) are mixed in Danshen at Xinjiang province when the former is in short supply. The water and MeOH extracts of S. deserta showed strong aldose reductase (AR) inhibitory activity, and their active constituents were determined to be polar compounds different from "tanshinones" of S. miltiorhiza, i.e., lithospermic acid B (1), salvianolic acid K (2), salviaflaside (3), and rosmarinic acid (4) (IC50, 2.63-3.91 microM). We also examined the AR inhibitory activity of water and MeOH extracts of seventeen Salvia plants, including ten species of Danshen resources (S. bowleyana, S. deserta, S. miltiorhiza, S. miltiorhiza var. miltiorhiza f. alba, S. paramiltiorhiza, S. paramiltiorhiza f. purpureo-rubra, S. przewalskii, S. przewalskii var. mandarinorum, S. sinica f. purpurea, S. trijuga), and their water extracts were also analyzed by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). The results indicated that there were four types with regard to the AR inhibitory activity and three types with regard to the amount of 1. Ten species used as Danshen resources showed good correlation between the AR inhibitory activity and the morphological classification. However, the intensities of their AR inhibitory activity varied, and they contained 1 in varying amounts. These facts suggested that the ten species were not the same, and thus their use as a Danshen resource should be based on their activity and/or active constituents.