Chemical Constituents of Psoraleae Fructus and Its Main Toxic Ingredients / 中国实验方剂学杂志

ABSTRACT

Psoraleae Fructus (Buguzhi) is dried mature fruit of Psoralea corylifolia. It is spicy and bitter in favor and warm in nature, and distributed to kidney and spleen meridians. Psoralea Fructus has the effects of warming kidney and tonifying Yang,absorbing Qi and relieving asthma,warming spleen and stopping diarrhea; for external use,it can remove beverage. It is mainly used to treat impotence and nocturnal emission cold and knee pain,kidney deficiency and asthma caused by kidney Yang deficiency; for external use, it can treat vitiligo and alopecia areata. Its principle chemical components are coumarins,monoterpene phenols,flavonoids,with an estrogen-like effect as well as anti-inflammatory,antibacterial,antifungal,anti-oxidation,anti-tumor and immunomodulatory activities, and can be used for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis,bacterial infections,asthma and osteoarthritis. However,the long-term administration with large doses of psoralen have the potential risk of causing liver damage,with phototoxicity,nephrotoxicity and reproductive toxicity,which restricts its application in clinical therapy. Therefore,it is essential to fully understand the chemical composition and mechanism of psoralen. Through the review and summarization of literatures about psoralen at home and abroad,this article systematically reviews the chemical constituents and toxicity of Psoralea Fructus, provides Chinese and English names,structural formulas,molecular formulas,molecular weights,CAS numbers of the compounds and the toxicity information about psoralen reported in recent years, in order to provide a reference for further study on the compositional spectrum and pharmacokinetics,toxic kinetic studies and clinical medication safety of psoralen.