Chemical and toxicological studies on bracken fern, Pteridium aquilinum var. latiusculum. I. Introduction, extraction and fractionation of constituents, and toxicological studies including carcinogenicity tests.

Abstract

Toxicity tests to experimental animals and cultured HeLa cells were performed on the extracts of young fronds of bracken, Pteridium aquilinum var. latiusculum, aiming the isolation and characterization of the carcinogen (s) and the cattle poison (s). The separation of the extracts monitored by cytotoxicity tests resulted in the isolation of more than twenty kinds of sesquiterpenes having 1-indanone nucleus, named pterosins, and their glucosides, pterosides, and several known phenolics and steroids. Although the dried fronds and rhizomes of the fern exhibited carcinogenicity by feeding to rats, none of the extracts and the fractions along with pterosin B and pteroside B, major indanones, induced tumors under the employed conditions.