International Journal of Biological Macromolecules 93 (2016) 344–349 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Biological Macromolecules journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijbiomac Encapsulation of Aloe Vera extract into natural Tragacanth Gum as a novel green wound healing product Soraya Ghayempour a , Majid Montazer a,∗ , Mahnaz Mahmoudi Rad b a Textile Engineering Department, Functional Fibrous Structures & Environmental Enhancement (FFSEE), Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran b Skin Research Centre, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 17 July 2016 Received in revised form 23 August 2016 Accepted 26 August 2016 Available online 30 August 2016 Keywords: Wound healing product Aloe Vera extract Nanocapsules Tragacanth Gum Scratch assay a b s t r a c t Application of natural materials in wound healing is an interest topic due to effective treatment with no side effects. In this paper, Aloe Vera extract was encapsulated into Tragacanth Gum through a sono- chemical microemulsion process to prepare a wound healing product. FESEM/EDX and FT-IR proved the successfully formation of the nanocapsules with spherical shape by cross-linking aluminum ions with Tragacanth Gum. The therapeutic characteristics of the prepared wound healing product were investi- gated using antimicrobial, cytotoxicity and wound healing assays. Relative high antimicrobial activities with the microbial reduction of 84, 91 and 80% against E. coli, S. aureus and C. albicans, a cell viability of 98% against human fibroblast cells and a good wound healing activity with considerable migration rate of fibroblast cells are the important advantages of the new formed wound healing product. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Wound, a physical injury created through contusion, haematoma, lacerations or abrasions lead to break epithelial integrity of the skin [1]. Repairing of skin tissue as protecting internal organs from the external environment and preventing body dehydration is very important process that is carried out at four overlapping stages including hemostasis, Wound closure occurs during the proliferation stage due to formation of a new granulation tissue [2–5]. From past to present, natural materials have been used to tra- ditional therapy of diseases. Aloe Vera is a plant growing in dry and warm weather that has been applied to accelerate wound healing [6–9]. This contains polysaccharides, vitamin C, vitamin E, anthraquinone, lecithin, glycoprotein, amino acids and several wound healing compounds. Medicinal properties of Aloe Vera can be related to the anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory characteris- tics [10,11]. Aloe Vera heals the wound through several suggested mechanisms such as increasing collagen, activating macrophages, reducing vasoconstriction, oxygenating, reducing platelet aggrega- tion and scavenging free radicals [10,12,13]. Several studies have been reported on the application of this plant as wound healing product. Yadav et al. evaluated the wound healing activity of 50 and ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: tex5mm@aut.ac.ir (M. Montazer). 96.4% gel of Aloe Vera on the experimental rats. They indicated that Aloe Vera gel can be accelerated the epithelialization and increased wound contraction by effect on the collagen level of wound tis- sue [1]. In-vitro degradation rate of calcium alginate hydrogel films containing Aloe Vera was investigated by Pereira et al. for wound healing and drug delivery applications. They showed increasing Aloe Vera significantly enhances the degradation rate of the pre- pared hydrogel films [14]. Curto et al. evaluated in-vitro effects of Aloe Vera on the wound healing of corneal cells. They indicated Aloe Vera is an useful product in healing of superficial corneal wounds through decreasing fibrosis, increasing collagenase activity and speeding epithelialization [15]. Recently, many useful applications of natural polysaccharides such as alginate, chitin and chitosan are reported in wound care management as the form of hydrogel, film and scaffold [16–18]. Tragacanth Gum (TG) is a natural polysaccharide that obtains from different species of Astragalus plant. This composes of an insoluble but water-swellable fraction called bassorin and a water-soluble fraction called tragacanthin. TG is almost insoluble in water, but swells to form a stiff gel due to its structure [19–23]. TG is widely used in different fields as the emulsifier, stabilizer, thickener and cross-linking agent [20,21,24–27]. This can be suitable for would healing due to lack of toxicological, allergenic, teratogenic, carcino- genic effects on the human body. Despite of considerable properties of TG, a few researches have been repoted on the application of TG in wound healing. Kamath et al. in 2003 used the suspension of extract of Cinnamomum zeylanicum bark prepared in TG for wound http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2016.08.076 0141-8130/© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.