Madecassoside isolated from Centello asiatica herbs facilitates burn wound healing in mice

The current study was designed to investigate the effect of madecassoside, the major triterpene in Centella asiatica, on burn wound healing and its possible mechanism of action. An oral administration of madecassoside (6, 12, 24 mg/kg) facilitated wound closure in a time-dependent manner and reached its peak effect, nearly completely wound closure, on day 20 in the group receiving the highest dose of 24 mg/kg of madecassoside. Further histopathological analysis revealed that madecassoside alleviated infiltration of inflammatory cells as well as enhanced epithelisation resulting from dermal proliferation of fibroblasts. Madecassoside at higher doses (12 and 24 mg/kg) decreased nitric oxide (NO) levels and malondialdehyde (MDA) content in the burn skin tissue. However, reduced glutathione (GSH) and hydroxyproline levels were increased in the same skin tissue. In addition, madecassoside promoted skin angiogenesis in vivo, correlating with our findings in vitro that it stimulated endothelial cell growth in a rat aortic ring assay. These data suggest that madecassoside has significant wound-healing activity and is one of the major reasons for the use of C. asiatica herbs in the successful treatment of burn injury. Moreover, the results from the present study indicate that the effect of madecassoside on wound healing may involve several mechanisms including antioxidative activity, collagen synthesis and angiogenesis.