Abstract
Umbelliprenin has recently been shown to have great potential as a skin whitening agent. Wishing to investigate the same effect in plant species known to biosynthesize this coumarin, three plants belonging to the Apiaceae family, namely Anethum graveolens L. (dill), Pimpinella anisum L. (anise), and Ferulago campestris (Besser) Grecescu (field ferula) were screened by HPLC analysis for their respective content of umbelliprenin in extracts obtained with different solvent mixtures and by maceration and ultrasound-assisted processes. EtOH was shown to be the best solvent, providing umbelliprenin yields ranging from 1.7% to 14.4% (with respect to the total amount of extract obtained). Extracts with the highest content of this farnesyloxycoumarin were then assayed as modulators of melanogenesis in cultured murine Melan A cells employing the same umbelliprenin obtained by chemical synthesis as the reference. A parallelism between the content of the coumarin and the recorded depigmenting effect (60% for the EtOH extract of F. campestris as the best value) was revealed for all plants extracts when applied at a dose of 100 μg/mL. Our results demonstrate that the same potential of umbelliprenin can be ascribed also to umbelliprenin-enriched plant extracts which reinforces enforce the widespread use of phyto-preparations for cosmetic purposes (e.g., A. graveolens).
Highlights
During the last two decades extensive studies have been carried on the phytochemical and pharmacological properties of a rare class of secondary metabolites of plant, fungal, and bacterial origin, the oxyprenylated phenylpropanoids and polyketides
Plant species of the Apiaceae family are nowadays well established to be able to biosynthesize a of the Apiaceae familymetabolites, are nowadays well established to be able to biosynthesize widePlant seriesspecies of oxyprenylated secondary in particular umbelliferone derivatives
The that we have demonstrated produce umbelliprenin to a relatively large extent qualitative andalready quantitative analysis to of this oxyprenylated coumarin was accomplished using four
Summary
During the last two decades extensive studies have been carried on the phytochemical and pharmacological properties of a rare class of secondary metabolites of plant, fungal, and bacterial origin, the oxyprenylated phenylpropanoids and polyketides.
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