Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Ethnopharmacology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jethpharm Activity evaluation on Ribes species, traditionally used to speed up healing of wounds: With special focus on Ribes nigrum Gülsen Kendir a , Ipek Süntar b,∗ , Ali Osman Çeribaşı c , Ayşegül Köroğlu d,e a Department of Pharmaceutical Botany, Faculty of Pharmacy, Istinye University, 34010, Zeytinburnu, Istanbul, Turkey b Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Gazi University, 06330, Etiler, Ankara, Turkey c Department of Pathology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Fırat University, 23119, Elazig, Turkey d Department of Pharmaceutical Botany, Faculty of Pharmacy, Ankara University, 06100, Tandogan, Ankara, Turkey e Afyonkarahisar Health Sciences University, Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Botany, 03200, Afyon, Turkey ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Excision Breaking strength Grossulariaceae Incision Ribes nigrum Wound healing ABSTRACT Ethnopharmacological relevance: Ribes species are usually evergreen shrubs, represented by eight species in Turkey. Although they are known for their fruits with commercial importance, their leaves have been used as folk remedy in various areas in Turkey by rural population owing to their wound healing potential. Aim of the study: In the present study we aimed to assess the wound healing activity of the leaves of Ribes species growing in Turkey, namely, Ribes alpinum L., R. anatolica Behçet, R. petraeum Wulfen, R. multiflorum Kit. ex Romer & Schultes, R. nigrum L., R. orientale Desf., R. rubrum L., R. uva-crispa L. Materials and methods: Wounds were surgically induced on the dorsal parts of the rats and mice. Prepared herbal ointments were topically applied onto the wounds once daily. The efects of the extracts were evaluated by measuring the breaking strength and percentage of reduction in wounded area by comparing the results with the registered reference ointment, FITO Krem ® . Histopathological and antioxidant assays were also conducted. Since, R. nigrum was determined to be the most active species, we further investigated the wound healing potential of the subextracts of the methanol extract of R. nigrum leaves. Results: R. nigrum and R. multiflorum extracts signifcantly increased wound breaking strength. Signifcant re- duction in the areas was determined for the wounded tissues treated with the ointments of R. nigrum and R. multiflorum extracts. Oxidative Stress Index was found to be lowest for R. orientale, R. nigrum and R. multiflorum. Among the subextracts of R. nigrum, ethyl acetate subextract was found to have promising efect. Conclusions: Methanol extracts of leaves of R. nigrum and R. multiflorum demonstrated signifcant wound healing efect. We can suggest that ethyl acetate subextract of R. nigrum may be a potential candidate to be used for the development of a wound healing agent. 1. Introduction The plants have a substantial history as a wound healer and there are many accomplished clinical trials on them as novel drug candidates in the wound healing process (Das et al., 2017). These natural agents provide healing and renewal of the tissue by multiple mechanisms (Raina et al., 2008). Ribes species are among the important medicinal plants used for the healing of wounds in folk medicine. They are evergreen shrubs from Grossulariaceae family which comprises of only two genus: Ribes L. (169 species) and Grossularia Mill. (one genus). Ribes species are common in the northern temperate regions of the world, cultivated as ornamental plants and considered as important for their edible fruits which are commonly known as black currant, red currant and goose- berry (Heywood et al., 2007; The Plant List, 2017). Fruits of some Ribes species are used for making cake, jam, juice, ice cream, preserves, fermented drinks and liquors (Weigend, 2007). According to the previous researches, the leaves of Ribes species are also popular for their therapeutic features. The leaf extracts obtained from Ribes species were reported to possess antioxidant (Delazar et al., 2010; Tabart et al., 2012; Sasaki et al., 2013; Cyboran et al., 2014; Kendir and Köroğlu, 2015), antimicrobial (Borchardt et al., 2008; Molgaard et al., 2011; Kendir et al., 2016; Paunovic et al., 2017), anti- infammatory (Tits et al., 1991; Mongold et al., 1993; Garbacki et al., 2005; Tabart et al., 2012) and anti-hypertensive (Rácz-Kotilla and Rácz, 1977; Lasserre et al., 1983) efects. The leaves contain favonoids https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2019.03.038 Received 29 July 2018; Received in revised form 2 February 2019; Accepted 14 March 2019 ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: ipesin@gazi.edu.tr (I. Süntar). Journal of Ethnopharmacology 237 (2019) 141–148 Available online 19 March 2019 0378-8741/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. T