Privileged structures have been widely used as an effective template for the research and discovery of high value chemicals. Coumarin is a simple scaffold widespread in Nature and it can be found in a considerable number of plants as well as in some fungi and bacteria. In the last years, these natural compounds have been gaining an increasing attention from the scientific community for their wide range of biological activities, mainly due to their ability to interact with diverse enzymes and receptors in living organisms. In addition, coumarin nucleus has proved to be easily synthetized and decorated, giving the possibility of designing new coumarin-based compounds and investigating their potential in the treatment of various diseases. The versatility of coumarin scaffold finds applications not only in medicinal chemistry but also in the agrochemical field as well as in the cosmetic and fragrances industry. This review is intended to be a critical overview on coumarins, comprehensive of natural sources, metabolites, biological evaluations and synthetic approaches.

Estrogen is known to induce rapid vasodilatory response in isolated arteries. Because estrogen is a nonselective receptor agonist, the involvement of estrogen receptor (ER) subtypes in acute estrogenic responses has remained elusive. Acute administration of the selective ER␣ agonist 4,4Ј,4Љ-(4-propyl-[ 1 H]pyrazole-1,3,5-triyl) tris-phenol (PPT) to precontracted aortic rings from intact female rats dose-dependently induced an ER-dependent vascular relaxation fully overlapping to that induced by 17␤-estradiol. By contrast, the selective ER␤ agonist 2,3-bis(4-hydroxyphenyl)-propionitrile (DPN) had no acute effect on vasomotion. This short-term vasorelaxant action of PPT was abolished by the NO synthase inhibitor N -nitro-L-arginine methyl ester and by endothelium removal. In aortic tissues from ovariectomized (OVX) rats, however, neither 17␤-estradiol nor PPT induced acute vascular relaxation. The effect of PPT was restored in preparations from estrogen-replaced OVX rats, whereas DPN remained ineffective even after estrogen replacement. PPT acted through an ER-dependent mechanism, as shown by impaired response in the presence of the anti-estrogen ICI 182,780 (7␣,4,5,5,5-pentafluoropentyl)sulfinyl]nonyl]estra-1,3,5(10)-triene-3,17-diol). Accordingly, isolated rat aortic endothelial cells expressed both ER␣ and ER␤. These data show that selective ER␣ but not ER␤ agonists reproduced the acute vasodilation of estrogen via a receptor-mediated pathway in the aorta from intact as well as 17␤-estradiolreplaced OVX rats. This beneficial effect was undetectable in tissues from OVX rats. Selective pharmacological targeting of ER subtypes may thus represent a novel and promising approach in the treatment of vascular disease.The vascular wall is clearly one of the target organs of estrogens. A number of studies have shown that estrogens modulate vasomotor responses after both acute application and in vivo short-or long-term treatment (for review, see Mendelsohn and Karas, 1999;Cignarella et al., 2001). Although different mechanisms have been reported (Shaw et al., 2001), such effects seem to be mediated by specific estrogen receptors (ERs) that are located on the plasma membrane as well as intracellularly. So far, two ER subtypes have been described: ER␣ and ER␤. Both subtypes are found in vascular smooth muscle (Register and Adams, 1998;Hodges et al., 2000;Maggi et al., 2003) and human endothelial cells (Caulin-Glaser et al., 1996). Although similar, the two ER isoforms are distinct gene products with nonoverlapping functions. They are coexpressed in most tissues but increasing evidence suggests that ER␣ and ER␤ mediate opposite effects in a kind of yin-yang manner (Gustafsson, 2003).The relative contribution of each ER subtype to vascular responses has been difficult to investigate because the physiological ER ligand 17␤-estradiol (E 2 ) has no binding affinity preference for ER␣ and ER␤. Selective ER agonists have now become available, the most widely used being 4,4Ј,4Љ-(4-propyl-[1 H]pyrazole-1,3,5-triyl) tris-phen...

Olvanil (N-9-Z-octadecenoyl-vanillamide) is an agonist of transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 (TRPV1) channels that lack the pungency of capsaicin and was developed as an oral analgesic. Vanillamides are unmatched in terms of structural simplicity, straightforward synthesis, and safety compared with the more powerful TRPV1 agonists, like the structurally complex phorboid compound resiniferatoxin. We have modified the fatty acyl chain of olvanil to obtain ultra-potent analogs. The insertion of a hydroxyl group at C-12 yielded a compound named rinvanil, after ricinoleic acid, significantly less potent than olvanil (EC 50 ϭ 6 versus 0.7 nM), but more versatile in terms of structural modifications because of the presence of an additional functional group. Acetylation and phenylacetylation of rinvanil re-established and dramatically enhanced, respectively, its potency at hTRPV1. With a two-digit picomolar EC 50 (90 pM), phenylacetylrinvanil (PhAR, IDN5890) is the most potent vanillamide ever described with potency comparable with that of resiniferatoxin (EC 50 , 11 pM). Benzoyl-and phenylpropionylrinvanil were as potent and less potent than PhAR, respectively, whereas configurational inversion to ent-PhAR and cyclopropanation (but not hydrogenation or epoxidation) of the double bond were tolerated. Finally, iodination of the aromatic hydroxyl caused a dramatic switch in functional activity, generating compounds that behaved as TRPV1 antagonists rather than agonists. Since the potency of PhAR was maintained in rat dorsal root ganglion neurons and, particularly, in the rat urinary bladder, this compound was investigated in an in vivo rat model of urinary incontinence and proved as effective as resiniferatoxin at reducing bladder detrusor overactivity.The "transient receptor potential" (TRP) channels are characterized by six trans-membrane domains and by permeability to several cations, including Ca 2ϩ . Several members of this large family of plasma membrane channels function as sensors for physical stimuli such as temperature higher or lower than physiological, changes in osmotic pressure, and stretching. Of the vanilloid-type (TRPV) subfamily of TRP receptors (Gunthorpe et al., 2002), TRPV1 and TRPV4 respond to stimulation with natural products, with capsaicin and resiniferatoxin being the best known and most thoroughly studied natural TRPV1 agonists (Sterner and Szallasi, 1999) and 4␣-phorbols being capable of activating TRPV4 (Nilius et al., 2004). Another common feature of TRPV1 and TRPV4 is their capability of being gated by endogenous ligands, which are distinct arachidonate derivatives in both cases (Di Marzo et al., 2002a;Nilius et al., 2004). It is now recognized that TRPV1 functions as a molecular Article, publication date, and citation information can be found at