Iranian Journal of Veterinary Medicine IJVM (2015), 9(2): 135 Wound healing activity of Origanum vulgare against surgical wounds infected by Staphylococcus aureus in a rat model Moslemi, H.R. 1* , Tehrani-sharif, M. 1 , Mohammmadpour, S. 1 , Makhmalbaf, A. 1 , Kafshdouzan, Kh. 2 , Ahadi, T. 3 , Mazaheri Nezhad Fard, R. 4 1 Department of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Garmsar Branch, Islamic Azad Universi- ty, Garmsar, Iran 2 Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Semnan, Semnan, Iran 3 Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 4 Rastegar Central Laboratory, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran Abstract: BACKGROUND: Wound infection has become a major medical problem in recent years. This is usually caused by Gram-posi- tive bacteria, especially Staphylococcus aureus. Since antimi- crobial resistance to current drugs has critically been developed in these causative microorganisms, substitution medicine has become one of the main interests within researchers. OBJEC- TIVES: The aim of this study was to evaluate the healing activ- ity of Origanum vulgare against surgical wounds infected by S. aureus. METHODS: Twenty male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into two groups. Excisions were created sur- gically on the animals’ skin and then infected with S. aureus. Group 1 was treated with an extract of O. vulgare while Group 2 was untreated. Wound biopsy specimens were collected on Days 5, 10 and 16 and analyzed. RESULTS: Results showed that the hydroxyproline content in the treatment group was sig- nifcantly higher in various post wounding days. The mean of hexosamine in the treated group was higher than in the control group. Protein content increased gradually in Day 10. Results of histopathological studies showed moderate to intense gran- ulation tissue formation and neovascularization in the treated group on Day 10. Furthermore, the histopathological studies showed that intense matrix formation and collagen fber depo- sition occurred in treatment group on Day 16 post wound, while intense granulation tissue formation was the prominent feature in control group. CONCLUSIONS: The present study has demonstrated that the ethanol extract of O. vulgare contains properties that accelerate wound healing activities compared to control group. Key words: Infected surgical wound, O. vulgare, S. aureus Correspondence Moslemi, H.R. Department of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Garmsar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Garmsar, Iran Tel: +98(23) 34552121 Fax: +98(23) 34552020 Email: hmoslemi@iau-garmsar. ac.ir Received: 5 November 2014 Accepted: 18 February 2015 Introduction Wound is defned simply as the disruption of the cellular and anatomic continuity of a tissue. Wound may be produced by physical, chemical, thermal, microbial or immunolog- ical insult to the tissue. Wound healing is a programmed biological process that restores tissue continuity after injury and is a combina- tion of physical, chemical and cellular events 135-142