Mahkota dewa

Its height ranges from 1m to 18m with 1 m long straight root exuding sap, brownish green bark and white wood. This plant productive age that ranges from 10 to 20 years. The leaves are green and tapering with length and width ranging from 7cm to 10cm and 3-5cm respectively. The flowers make a compound of 2-4, with color from green to maroon. Flowers come out all year and fragrant.  Pit is round, white and poisonous and fruit is of eclipse shape with a diameter of 3cm. Fruits are green when un-ripened and become red on ripening. Fruit flesh is white, fibrous, and watery. Seeds exist as 1-2 seeds per fruit and are brown, ovoid and anatropous. Rooted saddle and golden brown. Propagation by grafting and seeds.

Indonesia and Malaysia.

A variety of chemical constituents isolated from different parts of P. macrocarpa include phaleria, gallic acid, Icaricide C, magniferin, mahkoside, dodecanoic acid, palmitic acid, des-acetylflavicordin-A, flavicordin-A, flavicordin-D, flavicordin-A glucoside, ethyl stearate, lignans alkaloids and saponin (Rabia A., 2013). The pit  of P.macrocarpa contains 6 known compounds including magniferin (a C-glucosylxantone), kaempferol-3-o-β-D-glucoside, dodecanoic acid, palmitic acid, ethyl stearate, and sucrose. The bark and fruits are rich in saponins, alkaloids, polyphenolics, phenols, flavanoids, lignans and tannins. Isolated constituents of fruit include Icariside C3, magniferin, and gallic acid.  Phalerin was first isolated from leaves of P. macrocarpa as a benzophenone glycoside (3,4,5, trihydroxy-4-methoxy-benzophenone-3-O-β-D-glucoside). The pericarp of fruit contains kaempferol, myricetin, naringin and rutin. Naringin and quercitin are found in mesocarp and seeds  while phorboesters, des-acetyl flavicordin-A and 29-norcucurbitacin derivatives have been isolated from seeds. Fruit skins contain alkaloids, saponins, and flavonoids (www.wikipedia.com).

This herb is believed to be able to treat various types of diseases, including lowering blood sugar levels by prepared dried Phaleria brewed with hot water and make as a tea drink. Traditional people believed this plant useful for treating cancer, diabetes, heart disease, hipetensi and  weak lust. This plant when prepared properly could even be a herbal alternative to cure cancer. Moreover, this plant could cure liver disease and heart disease, hypertension, rheumatism, and also gout.

The extracts are reported for a number of valuable medicinal properties such as anti-cancer, anti-diabetic, anti-hyperlipidemic, ani-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-oxidant and vasorelaxant effect (Rabia A., 2013)

Anticancer activity Leaves and fruits of P.macrocarpa are being synergistic effect in reducing tumor growth in breast cells by inducing apoptosis but also protective effect on liver and kidney damage (Rabia A., 2013). Its stem is used to treat bone cancer. The egg shells of seeds are used in treating breast cancer, cervix cancer, lung diseases, liver and heart diseases while leaves contain constituents that treat impotence, blood diseases, allergies, diabetes mellitus and tumors.

Antihyperglycemic activity The exracts of P.macrocarpa fruits have been found to lower the post-prandial hyperglycemia. Highest activity is being shown by n-butanol extract of young and ripened fruits followed bt ethyl acetate extract and tehn methanol extract. Methanol extract of pericarp is recently reported to decrease blood glucose on 12th day in diabetic rats by 56.25% and 58.33% when compared with diabetic control and pre-treatment value respectively  (Rabia A., 2013).

Antihyperlipidemic activity The fruit of P.macrocarpa contains gallic acid compounds which action to decrease the cholesterol level in the body by up-regulating LDL-R (low density lipoprotein receptors) and pro-protein convertase subtilisin/kexin type-9 (PCSK9) via sterol regulatory element binding protein transcription factor (SREBP-2-TF) up-regulation. (Rabia A., 2013).

Antibacterial and anti-fungal activity Leaves and seeds of P. macrocarpa are found to have profound antibacterial activity. Flavanoids, saponins, polyphenols and tannins present in the fruit highly inhibit gram positive bacteria as compared to gram-negative bacteria  due to the outer permeability barrier in gram-negative bacteria. These bacteria include Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilis, Enterobacter aerogenes, Eschericia coli, Klebsiella pneumonia, Micrococcus luteus, Pseudomonas aeroginosa, Staphylococcus aureus. It exhibits its antimicrobial activity by different mechanisms as inhibiting nucleic acid synthesis, energy metabolism or cytoplasmic membrane function. Kaempferols are found to inhibit S. aureus, Enterococcus faecalis, Escherichia coli and P. aeroginosa. The methanol extracts of fruit of P. macrocarpa is found to have good activity against P. aeroginosa and strong activity against E. coli, B. cereus and Streptococcus aureus with the diameter of the inhibitory zone (DIZ) as 15-18mm. Ethyl acetate extract has shown good activity against E. coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Streptococcus ubellis while strong activity against P. aeroginosa, Streptococcus aureus and B. cereus with DIZ as 15-27 mm. The hexane and chloroform extract have found lowest activity with DIZ less than 10 mm. Phorbolesters in P. macrocarpa seeds inhibit growth of certain fungi as Aspergillus niger, Fusarium oxysporum, Ganoderma lucidum, and Mucor indicus.

Anti-inflammatory activity P. macrocarpa is found to have potent anti-inflammatory activity due to its contents, including terpenoids, saponins, tannins, flavanoids and phenols such as rutin and cathecol. Semipolar methanolic extract of fruit of P. macrocarpa DLBS1425 (containing 20.26% phalerin) is reported to inhibit inflammation. P. macrocarpa is also found to treat primary dysmenorrhea in which the production of leukotrienes and prostaglandins F2-α and E2 is enhanced at a large level and may cause increased uterine smooth muscles tone and contractions causing abdominal cramps. The pericarp and mesocarp extract of fruit have shown moderate anti-inflammatory activity while seed extract has shown weak activity.

Antioxidant activity The antioxidant activity of an extract is associated with its free radical scavenging activity. Different types of assays are developed to determine the antioxidant properties of plant extracts as ferric thiocyanate assay, thiobarbituric acid assay, ferric reducing antioxidant power assay and DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydroxyl) assay. Fruit and leaves of P. macrocarpa are found to possess flavanoids and phenolics which make it a potent antioxidant. The constituents present in mesocarp, pericarp and seed extract of P. macrocarpa are responsible for antioxidant activity such as gallic acid and 6-dihydroxy-4-methoxybenzophenone-2-o-β-D-glucoside which shows activity on DPPH. Pericarp extract has found to possess highest activity as an antioxidant while seed extract the lowest.

Vasorelaxant activity The leaves and fruit of P. macrocarpa have been used to counter a number of diseases, including vascular problems and high blood pressure. Dried flesh fruit powder and egg shells of seeds have been empirically considered potent cure of hypertension and heart diseases. Epidemiological studies have shown that its two major constituents have effect on cardiovascular system, the kaempferol, a flavanoid that reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases and icariside, that is a moderate vasorelaxant reducing hypertension. Icariside which is being isolated from chloroform extracts of P. macrocarpa fruit enhances vasorelaxant responses of isoproterenol and inhibits noradrenaline induced contractions contributing to the increase of second messengers as cyclic adenosine monophosphate and cyclic guanosine mono phosphate, phosphodiesterase inhibition and adenylatecyclase activation.

Cytotoxicity In cytotoxicity studies by Tjandrawinata R. R. in 2010 used standardized extract of flesh fruit indicated inhibition of proliferation and induction of apoptosis on breast cancer cells MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 cell lines. The methanol extract of pericarp, mesocarp and seed of P.macrocarpa showed promising activity toward in vitro cytotoxicity activity against MCF-7 and HeLa cell lines with IC50 between 25.5 - 40.8µg/ml. However when applied to HT29 cell line, only seed extract showed promising in vitro cytotoxicity activity (Hendra et. al., 2011).

Improve male fertility Study to determine the effects of Phaleria macrocarpa on male fertility  used male and female rats from Sprague Dawley species showed significant increased  sperm viability without changing the sperm motility and morphology. Hence, this study suggests that this plant offers an alternative way to improve male fertility by improving the sperm quality (Saadat P. et. al., 2013).

The ethanol extract pf P.macrocarpa seed has higher cytotoxicity than fruit meat extract on mononuclear perifer normal cell and vero cell line. The imunohistochemistry result explaned that the ethanol extract P.m seed and fruit meat and tamoxifen did not increase p53 and decrease Bcl-2 genes expression (Asturi E. et al 2007).

Rabia A. et. al., 2013. Phytochemistry and medicinal properties of Phaleria macrocarpa (Scheff.) Boerl. extracts.Pharmacognosy review. 7 (13):73-80.

Tjandrawinata R. R., Arifin P.F., Tandrasasmita O.M., Rahmi D.  and Aripin A. 2010. DLBS1425, a Phaleria macrocarpa (Scheff.) Boerl. extract confers anti proliferative and proapoptosis effects via eicosanoid pathway. Journal Experiment Therapy Oncology. 8(3):187-201.

Hendra R., Ahmad S., Ehsan O., Aspollah S. And M Yunus S. 2011. Antioxidant, anti inflammatory and cytotoxicity of Phaleria macrocarpa (Boerl.) Scheff fruit. BMC Complementary and alternative medicine.11:110.

Saadat  P., Maryam J. Y. and Mohammad Aziz D.2013. Effect of Phaleria macrocarpa on sperm Characteristics in adult Rats. Advanced pharmaceutical bulletin.3(2):345-352.

Rabyah B. A., Item J. A., Navneet K., Omar S. A., Mariam a., Roziahanim M. and Mohd Z. A. 2012. Bioassay guided antidiabetic study of Phaleria macrocarpa fruit extracts. Molecules. 17: 4986-5002.

Asturi E., Raharjo TJ, Eviane D. (2007). Cytotoxicity of Phaleria macrocarpa (Scheff) boerl Fruit Flesh and Seed Extract of Ethanol and its Effect Against p53 and Bcl-2 Genes Expression of Normal Cell. International Conference of Chemical Science.