1-Tetracosanol isolated from the leaves of Eupatorium glandulosum, accelerates wound healing by expressing inflammatory cytokines and matrix metalloproteinase

Ethnopharmacological relevance: The leave paste of the plant, Eupatorium glandulosum H. B & K, has been traditionally used to treat cuts and wounds by the tribal community of the Nilgiris district of Tamilnadu, India. Aim of the study: The present study was carried out to investigate the wound healing potential of this plant extract and the compound, 1-Tetracosanol, isolated from the ethyl acetate fraction. Materials and methods: An in vitro study was designed to compare the viability, migration and apoptosis of the fresh methanolic extract fractions and 1-Tetracosanol using mouse fibroblast NIH3T3 cell lines and human keratinocytes HaCaT cell lines, respectively. 1-Tetracosanol was evaluated for its viability, migration, qPCR analysis, in silico, in vitro and in vivo. Results: 1-Tetracosanol at the concentration of 800, 1600, 3200 mu M has significant wound closure of 99% at 24 h. The compound when screened in silico against various wound healing markers, TNF-alpha, IL-12, IL-18, GM-CSF and MMP-9, revealed high binding energy of 5, 4.9 and 6.4 kcal/mol for TNF-alpha, IL-18 and MMP-9, respectively. Gene expression and the release of cytokines increased at an early stage of the wound repair. 1-Tetracosanol, at 2% gel showed 97.35 +/- 2.06% wound closure at 21st day. Conclusion: 1-Tetracosanol is a good lead for drug development targeted towards wound healing activity and work in this direction is in progress.