Chemical composition of sage ( Salvia officinalis L . ) essential oil from the Rio de Janeiro State ( Brazil )

The purpose of this study was to investigate the chemical composition of the essential oil from fresh leaves of sage (Salvia officinalis L.) from Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro State, for international trade. The oil was isolated by hydrodistillation in a Clevenger-type apparatus and analyzed through a combination of GC-FID and GC-MS. The yield was 2.3 % on dry basis. Forty-seven constituents were identified according to their chromatographic retention indices and mass spectra, corresponding to 94.90 % of the compounds present. The major constituents of the oil were α-thujone (40.90 %), camphor (26.12 %), α-pinene (5.85 %) and β-thujone (5.62 %). The essential oil studied was similar to those found in several European countries and can be a valuable product for the small farmers from the Petrópolis region in Rio de Janeiro State.


INTRODUCTION
Salvia officinalis or sage (Lamiaceae family) is a perennial low shrub native of the Mediterranean region and its family reported to include more than 900 species (Pierozan et al. 2009;Ilkiu-Vidal et al. 2010).Its essential oil is added to meat, sausage, poultry stuffings, fish, soups, canned foods and other food products.Sage essential oil protected liver patés from oxidation processes and could be used as alternative option to synthetic antioxidants such BHT and was used in dry fermented buffalo sausage too (Estévez et al. 2007;Salem & Ibrahim, 2010).
The sage oil from Dalmatia region (Croatia), has been widely examined from the early 1960s until recent years.Traditionally, it is highly appreciated and economically valued.The plant is both, cultivated and collected in Turkey, Italy, Greece, France and Spain and serves as the standard sage to which others are compared (Svoboda & Deans, 1992).Although Salvia sp. is not originally from Brazil, some species have been well adapted, especially in Rio de Janeiro State.
The purpose of this paper was to examine the composition of the essential oil of Salvia officinalis from Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil for international trade.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The botanical material (variety "Elephant Ear") was collected in city of Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, directly from irrigated plots to trade of a small farmer.A voucher specimen of this plant was deposited in the herbarium of the Botanical Department of the Biology Institute of the Federal Rural University of the Rio de Janeiro (RBR 4240).
The plants were collected during the flowering phase (December/2008).
Five hundred grams of fresh leaves were submitted to hydrodistillation (with approximately 400 mL of water) in a Clevenger-type apparatus for 72 minutes without collecting solvent (Porte & Godoy, 2008).The extractions were performed in duplicates.The yield on dry basis was calculated from Equation 1   Chemical analysis was performed on a Hewlett-Packard 5890 series II gas chromatograph fitted with an HP-5 capillary column (25 m x 0.20 mm, 0.33µm film thickness).The carrier gas was hydrogen at a flow of 1 mL min -1 , and split ratio 1:100.The oven temperature was programmed from 60-25 o C at 2 o C min -1 , the injector temperature was 25 o C and the detector (FID) temperature was 28 o C (Porte & Godoy, 2008).
The analysis was carried out on a Hewlett Packard 5890 series II gas chromatograph coupled to an HP 5970 mass selective detector using a fused silica capillary column HP-5 (25 m x 0.20 mm, film 0.33 mm thickness).The column temperature was programmed from 60 o -250 o C at 2 o C min -1 , with helium as the carrier gas at a flow rate of 1 mL min -1 .The ion source temperature was 300 o C and the electron energy 70 eV.Identification of components was based on comparison of their mass spectra with those found in the literature, on retention indices and mass spectrometry data bank (NIST) and computer search Wiley library (Adams, 2007;Porte & Godoy, 2008).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The yield of sage essential oil from Rio de Janeiro was 2.3 % on dry basis.This is in accordance with others values found in literature, which reported yields of 1.1 to 2.8% (Couladis et al. 2002;Velièkovic et al. 2003;Lima et al. 2004;Klaus et al. 2009).
The compounds identified in the oil sample are presented in Table 1.
This suggests that the sage essential oil from Rio de Janeiro could have desirable chemical characteristics for international trade due to the similar concentrations of its major constituents in accordance to the essential oils from Dalmatia, the more recognized source of S. officinalis essential oil (Lima et al. 2004).
Furthermore, the essential oil studied could have good properties for therapeutic treatment of coughs and unspecific irritations of the respiratory tract and as an efficient agent against several foodborne pathogenes, as yeasts, molds and gram-positive bacteria, because of its high content of camphor.
If compared with literature and international standards cited by literature, the essential oil of Salvia officinalis from Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil can be a valuable product for the small farmers that region.The next step will be to evaluate the chemical composition of essential oil from Salvia officinalis during all seasons to check the variation of the major components of essential oil and finally to compose the profile of the essential oil.v. 68, n. 1, p. 435-45, 2003.

:EQUATION 1 .
Obtaining of essential oil yield on dry basisWhere: Y = Yield on dry basis EOM = Essential Oil Mass obtained SM = Sample Mass (fresh leaves mass) WM = Water Mass(AOCS, 2009)

TABLE 1 .
Chemical composition of the essential oil from leaves of Salvia officinalis L. from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.1.RI = retention index experimental determined (medium value of duplicates) 2. KI = retention index by Kovatz 3. t = trace (< 0.1%).