Biomolecules of interest present in the main industrial wood species used in indonesia-a review

Abstract

As a tropical archipelagic country, Indonesia’s forests possess high biodiversity, including its wide variety of wood species. Valorisation of biomolecules released from woody plant extracts has been gaining attractive interests since in the middle of 20th century. This paper focuses on a literature review of the potential valorisation of biomole-cules released from twenty wood species exploited in Indonesia. It has revealed that depending on the natural origin of the wood species studied and harmonized with the ethnobotanical and ethnomedicinal knowledge, the extractives derived from the woody plants have given valuable heritages in the fields of medicines and phar-macology. The families of the bioactive compounds found in the extracts mainly consisted of flavonoids, stilbenes, stilbenoids, lignans, tannins, simple phenols, terpenes, terpenoids, alkaloids, quinones, and saponins. In addition, biological or pharmacological activities of the extracts/isolated phytochemicals were recorded to have antioxidant, antimicrobial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetes, anti-dysentery, anticancer, analgesic, anti-malaria, and anti-Alzheimer activities. Aside from these remarkable characteristics of woody plant extractives, further studies concerning the valorisation of these extractives in the fields of nutraceutical, cosmetic, bio-control, bio-stimula-tion, and other advanced applications would be of interest.