Plant Antimutagenic Agents, 3. Coumarins

Several coumarins were isolated from crude plant extracts by means of an antimutagenic assay procedure. These coumarins included psoralen from Psoralea corylifolia and imperatorin and osthol from Selinum monniere. Studies of structure-activity relationships of these and several other available coumarins were carried out with four mutagens. All of the coumarins were nontoxic and in particular showed high activity in the inhibition of the mutagenicity of benzo[a]pyrene.