Abstract

The aim of wound care is to promote wound healing in the shortest time possible, and plants are a great source of medicines, especially in traditional medicine. Traditionally, medicinal plants have been used for many years as topical and internal preparations to promote wound repair. This work will give an overview of twelve West Africa medicinal plant studies and their active phytochemicals in direct wound healing. The process of wound healing is promoted by several herbal extracts, which are composed of active agents like triterpenes, alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, saponins, anthraquinones, and other biomolecules. 55% of overviewed plants contain tannins and we found that 45% of them contain terpenoids. Saponins are present at a level of 36% in these overviewed plants. Finally, we remarked that 80% of plants studied here contain flavonoids. The antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities of flavonoids were believed to be one of the important mechanisms in wound healing and in the presence of tannin it improved the regeneration and organization of the new tissue and hastened the wound healing process. Sterols and polyphenols are also responsible for wound healing due to free radical-scavenging and antioxidant activity, which are known to reduce lipid peroxidation. Cactus extract up-regulates VEGF expression in wounded skin, stimulating in return angiogenesis for supplying nutrients and oxygen for skin regrowth. The expression of MMPs revealed the enhanced healing pattern in the E. guineensis leaf extract treated rats group. In conclusion, biochemically wound healing process is promoted by active agents in herbal extracts and those components act synergistically.

Key words: Medicinal plants, phytochemicals, biochemically wound healing.