Research Article Various Parts of Helianthus annuus Plants as New Sources of Antimalarial Drugs Wiwied Ekasari , 1 Dwi Widya Pratiwi, 1 Zelmira Amanda, 1 Suciati, 1 Aty Widyawaruyanti , 1 and Heny Arwati 2 1 Department of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya 60115, Indonesia 2 Department of Medical Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya 60115, Indonesia Correspondence should be addressed to Wiwied Ekasari; wiwied-e@ff.unair.ac.id Received 27 June 2019; Revised 16 October 2019; Accepted 11 November 2019; Published 26 November 2019 Guest Editor: Philip F. Uzor Copyright © 2019 Wiwied Ekasari et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Each part of H. annuus plants is traditionally used as medicinal remedies for several diseases, including malaria. Antimalarial activity of the leaf and the seed has already been observed; however, there is no report about antimalarial activity of the other parts of H. annuus plants. In this study, we assess in vitro and in vivo antimalarial activity of each part of the plants and its mechanism as antimalarial agent against inhibition of heme detoxification. Objective. To investigate the antimalarial activity of various parts of H. annuus. Methods. Various parts of the H. annuus plant were tested for in vitro antimalarial activity against Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 strain (chloroquine-sensitive), in vivo antimalarial activity against P. berghei using Peters’ 4-day suppressive test in BALB/c mice, curative and prophylaxis assay, and inhibition of heme detoxification by evaluating β-hematin level. Results. Ethanol extract of the roots showed the highest antimalarial activity, followed by ethanol extract of leaves, with IC 50 values of 2.3 ± 1.4 and 4.3 ± 2.2 μg/mL, respectively and the percentage inhibition of P. berghei of 63.6 ± 8.0 and 59.3 ± 13.2 at a dose of 100 mg/kg, respectively. Ethanol extract of roots produced an ED 50 value of 10.6 ± 0.2 mg/kg in the curative test and showedaninhibitionof79.2%atadoseof400mg/kgintheprophylacticassay.Ininhibitionofhemedetoxificationassay,rootand leaf ethanol extracts yielded a lower IC 50 value than positive (chloroquine) control with a value of 0.4 ± 0.0 and 0.5 ± 0.0mg/mL, respectively. Conclusion. ere were promising results of the ethanol extracts of root of H. annuus as a new source for the development of a new plant-based antimalarial agent. 1. Introduction Most developing countries, including Indonesia, still depend on using plants in traditional medicine, including antima- larial agents. One of these plants is Helianthus annuus (Asteraceae), known as sunflower or “bunga matahari” in local language. Traditionally, each part of H. annuus plants is widely used in several healthcare applications, including the treatment of malaria. Sunflower tea is reported to be useful in the treatment of malarial and lung disease [1], and the leaves have long been used in infusion and decoction as traditional remedy for malaria by Ambalabe village com- munity, Madagascar [2]. Muti’ah et al. [3] report that 80% ethanol extract of H. annuus leaf shows good antimalarial activity with an ED 50 value of 4.64mg/kg. Moreover, the combination of 80% ethanol extract of H. annuus leaf and Acalypha indica Linn. leads to synergetic effect in in vivo antimalarial assay with a CI value of 0.46 (CI < 1)andanED 50 value of 1.23 mg/kg [4]. Intisar et al. [5] also report that methanol and petroleum ether extract from H. annuus seeds showed good inhibition activity against P. falciparum strain KI with an EC 50 of 0.19 and 0.34 μg/mL, respectively. Based on the data above, it is recognized that H. annuus plants are potential source of antimalarial drugs. However, antimalarial activity of the other parts of H. annuus plants has not been reported to date. us, in this study, we assess in vitro and in vivo antimalarial activity of each part of the plant and its mechanism as antimalarial agent against the inhibition of heme detoxification. e inhibition of heme Hindawi Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Volume 2019, Article ID 7390385, 7 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/7390385