Syzygium aqueum, consisting of various fruit colors, is one of the plants that have been used as traditional medicine. This study aims to evaluate and compare phytochemical, antioxidant, and cytotoxic activities and total phenolic content of leaves and stem bark extracts of S. aqueum with pink and red fruits, in order to identify the best extract that can be used as a natural antioxidant. Phytochemical constituents were evaluated qualitatively using chemicals, while cytotoxic activities were identified using the brine shrimp lethality test. Total phenolic content was determined via the Folin–Ciocalteu method. Leaves and stem bark of S. aqueum contained flavonoids, phenolics, and triterpenoids, but the stem bark also contained saponins and alkaloids. Methanol and ethyl acetate extracts of leaves and stem bark were categorized as very powerful antioxidants to DPPH (IC50 9.71–38.69 μg/mL) and hydrogen peroxide (IC50 16.44–44.02 μg/mL), while hexane extracts were inactive. Methanol, ethyl acetate, and hexane extracts of leaves and stem bark were categorized as moderately cytotoxic to A. salina larvae (LC50 104.04–440.65 μg/mL). Comparing leaves and stem barks, antioxidant and cytotoxic activities of stem bark extracts were higher than those of leaves extracts. Total phenolic content of leaves extracts was higher than that of stem bark extracts where the order of total phenolic content progressed from methanol extracts > ethyl acetate extracts > hexane extracts. Therefore, the stem bark of S. aqueum was identified as the better source of natural antioxidant compared with the leaves.
Scurrula ferruginea (Jack) Danser is a folk medicine to treat several diseases. S. ferruginea is the mistletoe that lives by deriving nutrients from the host. Hence, the host has a significant effect on the biological activities and bioactive components of S. ferruginea. In this study, the leaves of S. ferruginea were macerated by methanol solvent to extract the chemical components and fractionated by hexane and ethyl acetate solvent, respectively, to separate organic compounds. The biological activity of crude extracts as the antioxidant was investigated by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method. The result showed that the highest antioxidant activity was obtained from the ethyl acetate fraction with the IC50 of 10.88 ± 0.39 µg/mL. Furthermore, the trituration method used several solvents to isolate secondary metabolites from the initial crude methanol extract. This purification process produced a flavonoid compound of quercitrin. The antioxidant activity of quercitrin was also determined by the DPPH method. The result showed that this compound has stronger activity than the crude extracts with the IC50 of 5.95 ± 0.11 µg/mL. This study demonstrated that cacao mistletoe of S. ferruginea may have the potential activity to treat the diseases caused by the presence of free radicals.
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