A Study Of Antioxidant And Antimalarial Activity From The Bark Of Voacanga Foetida Bi. Rolfe, A Medicinal Plant From Lombok Island

Voacanga foetida BI. Rolfe is one of the medicinal plant of Indonesia that is utilized as a traditional medicine. The traditional uses of V. foetida are a hint for an active metabolites presence in the plant that triggering the bioactive study. Hence, this research is designed to study the therapeutic activities of V. foetida and its metabolites that are responsible for those response. There were two bioactivities that was studied in this research, namely antioxidant and antimalarial. The bark of V. foetida was divided into three fractions, which were methanol extract, acid fraction, and base fraction obtained by acid-base extraction. The samples then tested using the DPPH method for the antioxidant activity and the Giemsa Staining method for microscopy against Plasmodium falciparum strain 3D7 for antimalarial activity. The result showed that the bark of V. foetida was weak in inhibiting the atomic radicals that concluding it as a low antioxidant. On the other hand, all three samples were showing a great activity in inhibiting P. falciparum 3D7 stain, especially the base fraction. GC-MS analysis identified that the base fraction and the methanol extracts contains an alkaloid lombine might responsible for the antimalarial activity. Future research will be directed to the antimalarial activity by exploring the responsible compounds in the base fraction.