| Summary: | Malaysia is rich in biodiversity and there are many potential medicinal plants yet to be explored. The piper family is widely used by the locals to treat a variety of illnesses. The aim of this study was to evaluate the biological activities of Piper caninum extract and purified compound. Piper caninum was extracted using methanol (extract: PCM), ethyl acetate (extract, PCEA) and hexane (extract, PCH). Three compounds were purified, identified and named: pc1_UTM, pc2_UTM and pc3_UTM. Both compounds and extracts were tested for antioxidant activities using DPPH scavenging assay, ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and total phenolic content using Folin-Ciocalteu reagent. Anti-tyrosinase activities were also evaluated. The IC50 values revealed that pc1_UTM has the highest activities followed by pc2_UTM, pc3_UTM, PCEA and PCM mean while PCH was negative. PCEA exerted the highest percentage of tyrosinase inhibitor followed by PCM and PCH with values of 68.47%, 64.15% and 61.08% respectively. Meanwhile, pc3_UTM had the highest antityrosinase activity (44.15%) followed by pc2_UTM (42.96%) and pc_utm1 (32.95%) for compounds. The study suggested that Piper caninum provides a source of natural antioxidants and anti-tyrosinase agents and may be beneficial to human health. Presently, further studies on the molecular basis of the anti-inflammatory properties are carried out for the compounds.
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