Wound healing properties and mucilage content of Pereskia aculeata from different substrates

Pereskia aculeata Mill., Cactaceae, is a cactus with high mucilage production, well-known for its nutritional properties. Folk use consists on skin injuries, and mucilage is probably involved in the wound healing activity. This work studied some aspects of its cultivation, specifically regarding soil (substrate), to correlate the effects of nutritional content to mucilage production and to the wound-healing property. Plants were grown under five different soil treatment (sand, crude soil, sand and soil, sand and cattle manure, soil and cattle manure), and after eight months extracts were prepared by turbo-extraction to obtain a crude hydroethanolic extract. We evaluated the effects of these extracts on swelling index, cytotoxicity, and in vitro wound healing property. The results show that the substrate used in cultivation may interfere with mucilage production, but not with cytotoxicity and wound healing, this shows the safety of its use, despite the soil treatment received along the various biomes where Pereskia aculeata is cultivated. Furthermore, morphological studies demonstrated the beneficial effect of the mucilage-containing extract on the fibroblast cell culture, corroborating its folk use for wound healing. (C) 2014 Sociedade Brasileira de Farmacognosia. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. All rights reserved.