MEDICINAL PLANT WITH WOUND HEALING ACTIVITY: A FUNDAMENTAL REVIEW

Irinmwinuwa Omo Eric*, Mbah Chikodili Adolphus, Godwin Oyate Benard, Udoudo Isaac Etim

ABSTRACT

Wound healing is a process in which the tissue repairs itself after injury. Wound healing has attained a lot of attention as it is a complex phenomenon to maintain the integrity of skin after trauma. Plants always had a fundamental importance due to many reasons, and their therapeutic potentialities are noted and applied over generations. Recently many medicinal plants have been demonstrated for wound healing potential through in vivo and in vitro preclinical models and their mechanisms of wound healing has also been reported. Electronic databases such as PubMed, Scifinder and Google Scholar were used to search and filter for medicinal plants with wound healing activity. The methods employed in the evaluation of wound healing activity of these plants comprise both in vivo and in vitro models. In vivo wound models such as excision, incision, and burn wound model are commonly employed in assessing the rate of wound closure (contraction), tensile strength or breaking strength determination, antioxidant and antimicrobial activities, histological investigations including epithelialisation, collagen synthesis, and granulation tissue formation. In in vitro studies, single cell systems are mostly used to study proliferation and differentiation of dermal fibroblasts and keratinocytes by monitoring typical differentiation markers like collagen. In this study, 55 plants with scientifically demonstrated or reported wound healing properties were reviewed among several authors. The mechanism of wound healing action were by: stimulating neovascularization, antibacterial, free radical scavenging properties (antioxidant), plants anti-inflammatory effect or induction of macrophage cell proliferation, up-regulating the expressions of COL3A, VEGF and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) protein in wound granulation tissue. The study supports the traditional claims of medicinal plant in wound management.

Keywords: wound healing; mechanism of action; medicinal plant; epithelisation.