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Auraptene and umbelliprenin are among the most abundant naturally occurring prenyloxy umbelliferone derivatives. Both have been mainly isolated from plants belonging to numerous genera of the Rutaceae (in particular auraptene in Citrus spp.) and Apiaceae (in particular umbelliprenin in Ferula spp.) families, comprising different and widely used medicinal plants and in general plants having beneficial effects to human welfare as well as edible fruits and vegetables. Although known for quite a long time (nearly a century for auraptene and 50 years for umbelliprenin), only in the last two decades the two title natural compounds were revealed to possess valuable and promising pharmacological properties as dietary feeding active cancer chemopreventive, antibacterial, anti-protozoal, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective, and anti-oxidant agents among the activities best detailed in the recent literature. The aim of this comprehensive review is to outline in detail the effects described in the very last years for auraptene and umbelliprenin and what has been reported about the mechanisms of action underlying the observed pharmacological activities of these oxyprenylated secondary metabolites. In view of the herein described data suggestions on how to address the future research about both natural products in the best ways according to Authors will be also provided.

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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).

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