## 3 Results and Discussion
### Polyphenolic Characterization of Sage, Wild Thyme and Laurel Herbal Extract and Their Mixtures  
A UPLC/MS-MS analysis was carried out to investigate the polyphenolic profile of the \(L\), _WT_ and \(S\) herbal extracts and their mixtures. The results (Table 3) showed 27 phenolic compounds consisting of flavanols, flavonols, flavones, and hydroxycinnamic and hydroxybenzoic acids. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c} \multicolumn{11}{c}  
Among flavanols, compounds **16** and **17** were identified by comparison with authentic standards such as catechin and epicatechin. Catechin and epicatechin were mainly found in the extract of \(L\) and \(WT\), while in two-component and three-component mixtures, the highest amount was in _WTS31_ and _WTSL211_. These flavanols were previously found in the herbal extracts of laurel [51; 52] and wild thyme [53; 54; 55] in varying amounts. Among the flavonoids, compounds **2** and **15** were identified as rutin and myricetin compared with the authentic standards. The compounds **3**, **10**, **13** and **14** were characterized by a specific fragment ion at \(m/z\) 287 comparable with kaempfer. They were tentatively recognized due to specific fragment loss as kaempfer-3-rutinoside (rhammose \(-146\) amu; glucose \(-162\) amu), kaempfer-3-O-hexoside (glucose \(-162\) amu), kaempfer-3-O-deoxyhexoside (deoxyhexose \(-146\) amu) and kaempfer-3-O-pentoside (pentose \(-132\) amu) [33]. The compounds **6**, **9** and **12** were tentatively assigned due to the characteristic fragment ion at \(m/z\) 303 and specific loss of sugar moieties as quercetin-3-glucose (glucose \(-162\) amu), quercetin-3-rhamnoside (rhammose \(-146\) amu) and quercetin-3-pentoside (pentose \(-132\) amu). The results of the current study showed that flavonols were the most abundant compounds in the extract of \(S\), which was previously noted by [PERSON] et al. [56]. Flavonols, primarily kaempfer-3-O-hexoside and kaempfer-3-rutinoside, were also present in high amounts in the mixtures where \(S\) was dominant, but kaempfer-3-rutinoside was higher in most mixtures with \(S\) than in the one-component \(S\) extract. Its amount was dominant in the _WTS13_ mixture, and kaempfer-3-O-hexoside was found in the highest concentration in the two-component _SL31_ mixture. Rutin was dominant in all two-component _WTS_ mixtures, while its presence was lower in their one-component extracts. Among the flavones, compounds **18** and **19** were identified by comparison with authentic standards such as luteolin and apigenin. Apigenin was the dominant compound in the \(S\) extract and mixtures of \(WT\) with \(S\) and \(L\) (in the ratio of 2:1). In varying amounts, apigenin was also detected in all three-component mixtures. Luteolin was the most abundant in the \(S\) extract, but its amount was higher in the _SL31_ mixture. All detected flavones have previously been found in the \(WT\), \(S\) and \(L\) extracts [9; 10; 20; 52; 57; 58]. Among the hydroxycinnamic acids, the compounds **20**, **21**, **24**, **25** and **27** were identified through comparison with authentic standards as rosmarinic, chlorogenic, ferulic, caffeic and \(p\)-caffeic acid. Caffeic acid dominated the \(WT\) and \(S\) extracts and their two-component mixtures. Except for caffeic acid, \(p\)-caffeic acid was also the dominant acid in the \(WT\) extract. The presence of these acids was remarkably higher in the \(WT\) extract than in any other \(WT\) mixtures. On the contrary, the presence of rosmarinic acid was higher in two-component \(WT\) mixtures than in the \(WT\) extract. Ferrulic acid was the most dominant in the \(S\) and two-component \(S\) mixtures. All detected hydroxycinnamic acids were found in previous studies of laurel [7; 52; 59; 60], wild thyme [20; 54; 57; 61] and sage extracts [8; 19; 56; 61; 62].