Abstract:
Background: Medicinal plants play an important role in treating various diseases. Vernonia
auriculifera Hiern is one of the medicinal plants used traditionally for the management of
wounds. However, there were no scientific reports documented so far on the wound healing
activities to substantiate the claim. Thus, the present study provides a scientific evaluation for
the wound healing potential of the crude extract as well as solvent fractions of the leaves of
Vernonia auriculifera Hiern.
Methods: Extraction was carried out by maceration using 80% methanol and part of the crude
extract fractionated with chloroform, ethyl acetate, and aqueous solvents. Simple ointment bases
were prepared using hard paraffin, cetostearyl alcohol, white soft paraffin and wool fat according
to British Pharmacopoeia. Then, two types of ointment formulations were prepared from the
extract, ie, 5% w/w and 10% w/w. Mice and rats were employed for wound healing study and
dermal toxicity test, respectively. Wound healing effects were evaluated by percent of wound
contraction, period of epithelialization, tensile strength, and histological analysis as parameters in
excision, incision, and burn wound models. Finally, the data were expressed as mean ± SEM, and
the results were analyzed using one-way ANOVA followed by post hoc Tukey-test.
Results: In the excision wound model, the 10% w/w crude extract ointment showed
significant wound contraction (P < 0.001) from day 4 to day 18 as compared to the negative
control. Both the 5% w/w (P < 0.001) and 10% w/w (P < 0.05) crude extract ointments have
showed statistically significant difference in epithelialization period as compared to the
negative control. Groups treated with the ethyl acetate and aqueous fractions ointments in
incision wound model showed a statistically significant (P < 0.001) increase in tensile. The
10% w/w and 5% w/w ointments of the crude extract showed a significant (P < 0.001)
increase in breaking strength compared to simple ointment and the untreated control groups.
In burn wound model, significant reduction in epithelialization period was observed in 5% w/
w (P < 0.05) and 10% w/w (P < 0.001), and the percentage of wound contraction was
significantly increased in most of post wounding days by 10% w/w (P < 0.001) and 5% w/w
(P < 0.05) crude extract ointments and compared to the negative control.
Conclusion: The crude, aqueous, and ethyl acetate fraction of Vernonia auriculifera leaves
possess wound healing activities. This finding justifies the use of the leaves of this plant for
wound healing as claimed in the traditional medicine literature.
Keywords: wound healing, Vernonia auriculifera Hiern, wound models, leaves, Ethiopia
Introduction
A wound is a disruption of cellular and anatomic continuity, with impairment of the
tissue’s protective or physiological fun
