cytotoxic activity of the essential oil of salvia verticillata l.

salvia is one of the largest genera of  lamiaceae family. several species of this genus are perfumed and wealthy in essential oils. some of them are used in industry, pharmacy and aromatherapy. they have shown different biological effects such as antibacterial and antioxidant activity. for the present study, salvia verticillata l. was collected from shahrestanak, mazandaran, iran. hydrodistilled essential oil from the aerial parts of this plant was obtained with a clevenger type  apparatus  and was analyzed by gc and gc/ms. moreover, the cytotoxic activity of the essential oil was investigated against ht-29 (colon adenocarcinoma), caco-2 (colorectal adenocarcinoma), t-47d (breast ductal carcinoma) and nih-3t3 (swiss mouse embryo fibroblast) cell lines by mtt test. 59 components were characterized from the oil with trans-caryophyllene (24.40%), β-phellandrene (9.08%), α-humulene (8.61%), bicyclogermacrene (6.32%), spathulenol (5.89%) and β-pinene (5.00%) as the major constituents. these compounds represented 97.67% of the essential oil and included monoterpenes (34.83%) and sesquiterpens (61.84%). the results of the cytotoxicity assay demonstrated that the essential oil of s. verticillata showed higher cytotoxic effect on caco-2 cell line.