Antileishmanial activity of 12-methoxycarnosic acid from Salvia repens Burch. ex Benth. (Lamiaceae)

Abstract In South Africa, Salvia repens is used traditionally to treat sores, stomach ache and diarrhoea. The high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-based activity profiling of S. repens whole plant extract showed an active abietane diterpene, identified as 12-methoxycarnosic acid ( 1 ) which showed antiprotozoal activity against axenically grown Leishmania donovani amastigotes with an IC 50 of 0.75 μM with marginal cytotoxicity against the L6-cells (IC 50 , 17.3 μM).