Chemical profiling of complex mixtures from Polynesian plants for mapping wound-healing properties

Polynesian plants such as Calophyllum inophyllum , Gardenia taitensis , and Cordia subcordata are widely used in traditional medicine, especially for skin care applications (wounds, burns, pimples, dermatoses) [ 1 ]. Inspired by those uses, this study aims to assess their wound-healing properties on skin cells and to quickly characterise metabolites in mixtures for a cosmetic and pharmaceutical valorisation. Therefore, plant extracts were obtained using ultrasound-assisted extraction with ethanol: water (7:3, v/v) solvent [ 2 ]. This eco-extraction method afforded efficient yields and is suitable for cosmetic valorisation. Plant crude extracts were first submitted to liquid-liquid partition using stepwise gradients, and the resulting EtOAc extracts were fractionated by centrifugal partition chromatography (CPC). Then, scratch wound healing assays on keratinocytes (HaCaT) and fibroblasts (CI-huFIB) were performed on extracts and fractions at micromolar concentrations. Promising results were obtained by enhancement of migration and proliferation of skin cells at non-cytotoxic concentrations for these three plant extracts. Dereplicative methods were performed to profile the chemical composition using molecular networking within LC-MS 2 analysis combined with CaraMel workflow through 13 C NMR analysis [ 3 ]. 13 C signals of CPC fractions were used to create heatmaps using hierarchical clustering analysis with resulting clusters corresponding to molecular structures ([ Fig. 1 ]). This method allowed accelerated characterisation, avoiding purification processes and leading to annotations and molecular identifications with high confidence. Finally, the correlation between wound-healing properties and chemical composition was performed for mapping biological activities. These results highlight the potential of Polynesian plants from cosmetopeia and pharmacopeia as a source of bioactive compounds for skin care applications. Fig. 1 Mixture of compounds identified with CaraMed workflow in CPC fraction of C. subcordata : sanctures and heatmeap with some corresponding clusters. Publication History Article published online: 05 March 2026 © 2026. Thieme. All rights reserved. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Oswald-Hesse-Straße 50, 70469 Stuttgart, Germany