Harnessing Plant Bioactive Compounds in Biomaterial Scaffolds for Advanced Wound Healing: A Comprehensive Review

Wound healing remains a significant clinical challenge due to antibiotic-resistant pathogens, persistent inflammation, oxidative stress, and impaired tissue regeneration. Conventional therapies are often inadequate, necessitating alternative strategies. Plant bioactive compounds, including flavonoids, tannins, terpenoids, and alkaloids, offer antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and pro-angiogenic properties that directly address these challenges in wound healing therapy. However, their poor solubility, instability, and rapid degradation at the wound site limit clinical translation. Biomaterial-based scaffolds such as hydrogels, electrospun nanofibers, lyophilized dressings, and 3D-bioprinted constructs have emerged as promising delivery platforms to enhance bioavailability, stability, and sustained release of bioactive compounds while providing structural support for cell adhesion, proliferation, and tissue repair. This review was conducted through a structured literature search using PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases, covering studies published between 1998 and 2025, with keywords including wound healing, phytochemicals, plant bioactive compounds, scaffolds, hydrogels, electrospinning, and 3D bioprinting. The findings highlight how incorporation of plant bioactive compounds onto scaffolds can combat resistant microbial infections, mitigate oxidative stress, promote angiogenesis, and accelerate tissue regeneration. Despite these promising outcomes, further optimization of scaffold design, standardization of bioactive formulations, and translational studies are needed to bridge laboratory research with clinical applications for next generation wound healing therapies.