Meistera chinensis fruit properties: Chemical compound, antioxidant, antimicrobial, and antifungal activity

Zingiberaceae has a large number of species in Indonesia. One of the newly discovered generations of this class is Meistera chinensis. It is widely distributed in Konawe Regency, Southeast Sulawesi. There is no information on the chemical compound and pharmacological activity of this plant. This study aims to identify chemical compounds, antibacterial, antioxidant, and antifungal of extract from Meistera chinensis fruit. Meistera chinensis fruit dry powder was extracted by maceration process using ethanol 96% solvent. The extract was concentrated using a rotary evaporator. The antioxidant activity was determined by the radical reduction test of 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) with vitamin C and trolox as controls. The antimicrobial and antifungal activities were tested using agar diffusion method on Escherichia coli ACTT 35218, Staphylococcus aureus ACTT 25023, Streptococcus mutans ACTT 25675, and the fungus Candida albicans. The results showed that the phytochemical screening of Meistera chinensis fruit extracts contained saponins, terpenoids, steroids, alkaloids, phenolics, tannin, and flavonoids. The extracts exhibited antioxidant activity by scavenging DPPH radicals in a dose-dependent pattern with IC₅₀ 47.62 ± 2.93, 8.84 ± 0.69, 11.45 ± 0.87 for Meistera chinensis fruit, ascorbic acid, and trolox respectively. The results of the analysis of variance on antibacterial and antifungal properties showed that there was a significant difference (p = 0.00 < 0.05) against fungal and bacterial growth. Besade on the results, we make the following observations that Meistera chinensis fruit can be used as herbal medicine for the development of natural antioxidants, antibacterial, and antifungal.