Preliminary investigation of wound healing activity of stem bark extract of Ficus racemosa Linn.

Abstract

Stem bark of Ficus racemosa is utilized in the preparation of Ayurvedic and indigenous medicines, which aids in wound healing while ethanolic extract has been reported to be wound healing active on a rat model. The present study was undertaken to investigate the wound healing activity of the extracts and their fractions of F. racemosa bark using wound healing assay (WHA). Hexanes, dichloromethane, ethylacetate and methanol extracts of stem bark of F. racemosa were obtained by sequentially extracting with respective solvents and removing the solvents. Madin-Darby Canine Kidney cells were distributed on 12-well tissue culture plates with Dulbecco's Modified Eagles Medium (DMEM) to form a monolayer and a wound was made by mechanically scratching the cell layer. Then the extracts were introduced using dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) at a concentration of 0.1 mg/dm-3. 1% DMSO in DMEM and 100% of DMEM were served as the controls. Initial width of the scratch and the width of the scratch after treatment, at 12 h, 18 h, and 24 h were measured by using a stage

micrometer. Of the four extracts, showed enhanced, wound closure

hexanes and dichloromethane extracts with respect to controls (84% and 76%

respectively at 24 h). Bioactivity guided fractionation of dichloromethane extract showed that fraction 7 is the highest active fraction (100%) while fractions 9-11, 14 and 17 showed >90% activity. Lupeol was found to be the major constituent (m. p., mixed m. p., TLC and Co-TLC) present in the fraction 7 while β-sitosterol was found to be the major constituent (m. p., mixed m. p., TLC Co-TLC and NMR) in fraction 9.