Bioactive substances of red sage (Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge) and their use in medicine

Zdeňka Navrátilová¹, Jiří Patočka^2,, ^3
1Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Přírodovědecká fakulta, katedra botaniky ²Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích, Zdravotně sociální fakulta, katedra radiologie, toxikologie a ochrany obyvatelstva ³Fakultní nemocnice, Centrum biomedicínského výzkumu, Hradec Králové

Korespondenční autor: Zdeňka Navrátilová (navratil@natur.cuni.cz)

ISSN 1804-7858 (On-line)

Full verze:

Submitted:1. 8. 2013
Accepted: 14. 11. 2013
Published online: 20. 12. 2013

Summary

Red sage (Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge) is a perennial herb of the family Lamiaceae (mint family) native to China, Japan, Mongolia and Korea. In traditional Eastern medicine, especially in Chinese, it has a variety of uses. For medicinal purposes it is grown commercially also in other countries. The root of the red sage is officially part of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia and is used both to prepare a beverage used internally, thus to prepare an ointment for external use. From the roots were isolated more than 90 various compounds subjected to biological testing. The lipophilic substances contained in the red sage mainly include diterpenic quinone compounds of the abietan type; the hydrophilic ones include polyphenols and phenolic acids. Their pharmacological effects are very varied: cardioprotective, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, lipid-lowering, neuroprotective and hepatoprotective. In many cases, the pharmacological activity of the sage was associated with specific chemical substances that are responsible for biological activity. Modern plant research confirms that the effects attributed to the red sage in traditional medicine are based on pharmacologically active substances. Many of them are unique, they have not been found in other plants and they might be a model for the synthesis of similar substances with the expected pharmacological effect and promising application in biomedicine. This concerns especially the tanshinones, quinoid diterpenes that are recently intensively studied in particular as substances that effectively protect cells from apoptosis caused by hypoxia.

Keywords: red sage – Salvia miltiorrhiza – pharmacology – toxicology – biomedicine

Souhrn

Šalvěj červenokořenná (Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge) je vytrvalá bylina z čeledi Lamiaceae (hluchavkovité) původem z Číny, Japonska, Mongolska a Koreje. V tradiční východní medicíně, zejména čínské, má mnohostranné využití. Pro medicinální účely se pěstuje komerčně i v jiných zemích. Kořen šalvěje červenokořenné je oficiální součástí čínského lékopisu a používá se jak k přípravě nápoje používaného vnitřně, tak k přípravě masti pro zevní použití. Z kořenů bylo izolováno již více než 90 různých sloučenin, které byly podrobeny biologickému testování. K lipofilním obsahovým látkám šalvěje červenokořenné patří především diterpenické chinonové sloučeniny abietanového typu, k těm hydrofilním polyfenoly a fenolické kyseliny. Jejich farmakologické účinky jsou velmi rozmanité: kardioprotektivní, antioxidační a protizánětlivé, protinádorové, hypolipidemické, neuroprotektivní a hepatoprotektivní. V mnoha případech byla farmakologická aktivita šalvěje spojena s konkrétními chemickými substancemi, které jsou za biologickou aktivitu zodpovědné.

Klíčová slova: šalvěj červenokořenná – Salvia miltiorrhiza – farmakologie – toxikologie – biomedicína

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