REGENERATIVE POTENTIAL OF TASPINA DERIVED FROM CROTON LECHLERI: A NARRATIVE REVIEW

ABSTRACT

Dragon’s blood resin (Croton lechleri) is a natural product used in traditional medicine as a wound healer. It is believed that taspine, derived from the resin, is the phytochemical component with the highest activity in tissue repair. The aim of this study was to conduct a narrative review of the regenerative potential of the bioactive taspine present in the resin. A search was conducted in the databases PubMed, SciELO, and Google Scholar, using the descriptors: dragon's blood, taspine, wound healing, and bioactives. Inclusion criteria were applied to articles of the case report, experimental, and systematic review types, with no temporal filter. Exclusion criteria eliminated duplicate publications or those outside the thematic scope. Of the 273 articles retrieved, only 17 studies composed the sample. Despite the diversity of substances present in the resin, taspine, the alkaloid, was predominant. The literature highlights its beneficial characteristics of healing action, favored by fibroblast chemotaxis, collagen fibrogenesis, angiogenic and epithelial proliferation. However, the tissue repair profile beyond the skin remains unexplored, particularly due to a lack of preclinical biological studies with the natural resin, stemming from vegan and cruelty-free principles. It can be concluded that taspine shows excellent potential for cutaneous regeneration, suggesting the need for more studies on bioactivity either in isolation or in combination with biomaterials.