Article Review: Rana ridibunda skin secretions accelerate wound healing

Article Review: Topical effects of frog "Rana ridibunda" skin secretions on wound healing and the reduction of wound microbial load


In traditional medical applications frog skin has been used as wound dressing for its effectiveness in speeding healing and its ability to reduce inflammation with its secretions. This article represents an investigation of these properties as it examines the effectiveness of frog skin secretion when applied to wounds on mice. The application of raw extractions (RE) of the secretions is compared with extractions of a different membrane size cutoff (U10E) as well as a control and a group with a different ointment (o). The wound closure and microbiology are observed and compared among these groups over a period of 6 days. The numbers of inflammatory and fibroblast cells and the amount of collagen fibers were some of the histological parameters observed and compared among the different test groups. The results show that the group with the membrane size controlled cutoff demonstrated the greatest degree of wound healing. The result tables for both wound closure and wound microbiology are shown below.

The potential value of this is that it may eventually lead to the production of new materials, drugs, treatments, or perhaps just better understanding of the mechanisms of growth and repair systems of biological structures such as skin or tissues.

This article was interesting to me because it focused on the effect of skin secretions on wound healing, tying in directly to one of my current courses.  This semester in a physics course I learned about nano-scale self-assembly liquid crystal (LC) films from defibrillated chitosan nanofibers and how this biomemetic process may open up possibilities for research in accelerated wound healing (biological tissues are known to self-assemble in a similar fashion and principal proteins such as collagen, chitin, or keratin are primary constituents of soft tissue).

I was interested in the fact that there was significant correlation between wound healing and the increased amount of fibroblast cells (and the sequential higher amount of collagen).  I am curious as to which biomediated mechanism determines the structure and how it functions in wound healing, as well as ways this information may be valuable for a similar experiment reproduced with biomemetic materials.

Mohammad Mashreghi, Mahere Rezazade Bazaz, Nasser Mahdavi Shahri, Ahmad Asoodeh, Mansour Mashreghi, Morteza Behnam Rassouli, Shiva Golmohammadzadeh, 

Topical effects of frog “Rana ridibunda” skin secretions on wound healing and reduction of wound microbial load, 

Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Volume 145, Issue 3, 13 February 2013, 

Pages 793-797, ISSN 0378-8741, 10.1016/j.jep.2012.12.016.

(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378874112008501)