Indonesia's pharmaceutical industry is the largest in ASEAN, but imports of raw materials for medicines in Indonesia reach 95%. To increase the use of Indonesian plants as sources of medicines, research is needed to determine the active compounds contained in these plants and their bioactivity. Among the various plants, the Garcinia plant, which belongs to the Clusiaceae family, is of interest to study. Clusiaceae ( Guttiferae ) is a family of woody plants that mostly grow in tropical regions. Xanthones are always found in the Guttiferae family. Xanthones are natural product chemical compounds that have several activities. Some of the biological activities of xanthones include hepatoprotective, anticancer, anti-leprosy, antimalarial, antioxidant, anti-HIV, antitumor, antidiabetic, antihistamine, and antidiarrheal. The Garcinia latissima Miq . plant, which grows on Seram Island, Maluku and Papua and is cultivated in the Bogor Botanical Gardens, may have potential as an antimicrobial.
In this regard, UI Pharmacy Doctorate (Dr. Neneng Siti Silfi Ambarwati) conducted a research on “Isolation and Identification of Active Compounds that Inhibit Microbial Growth from the Garcinia latissima Miq Plant .”. The purpose of this research is to obtain isolates of active compounds from the active fraction as antibacterial or antifungal and to obtain the structure of active compounds from the G. latissima Miq plant.
Plant materials (fruit peel, stem bark, and leaves) of Garcinia latissima Miq . Each was macerated in stages using three kinds of solvents ( n -hexane, ethyl acetate, and methanol) to obtain nine extracts. Antimicrobial tests of these 9 extracts were carried out against two gram-positive bacteria ( Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis ), two gram-negative bacteria ( Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli ), and two fungi ( Candida albicans and Trichophyton mentagrophytes ) using the inhibition zone test. Extracts that gave an inhibition zone were tested again using 2% extract in DMSO. Extracts that gave an inhibition zone at a concentration of 2% were tested for minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) using the dilution method and then fractionated using column chromatography. The fractions obtained were tested for inhibition zones and determination of MIC values by microdilution.
The benefits obtained from the research results conducted by Dr. Neneng Siti Silfi Ambarwati who is currently still active as a lecturer at the Faculty of Engineering, Jakarta State University, are to provide added value to the use of the Garcinia latissima Miq plant . Being one of the herbal medicines as an antimicrobial, providing information about the content of compounds found in the Garcinia latissima Miq plant , considering that the information is still rarely found, and producing active compounds as antimicrobial drugs that will contribute to the development of science.
