Compound Monograph
Fraxin
Fraxin is a coumarin glucoside — fraxetin 8-O-glucoside — a minor constituent of horse-chestnut and ash (Fraxinus) bark (Cortex Fraxini), grouped with esculin as the seed's coumarin fraction. Its research is entirely preclinical (rodent anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective and antioxidant signals), with no human trials of the isolate; it is a dihydroxy/methoxy coumarin, not a warfarin-type anticoagulant.
Sources · 6
Where Does It Come From?
Fraxin is a naturally occurring coumarin glycoside, found in Horse Chestnut — bark and seed, Ash bark, Manna ash and 3 other sources. It is well tolerated orally (low toxicity).
Concentration
Content by Source
Concentrations not reported. No percent-dry-weight or mg/g figures have been published for this compound in its source plants.
Fraxin at a Glance
Fraxin is a coumarin glucoside — fraxetin with a sugar attached — found in horse-chestnut and ash bark, and grouped with esculin as the coumarin fraction of horse-chestnut seed.
Like the other coumarin glucosides here it functions largely as a poorly absorbed precursor to its aglycone. Its research is entirely preclinical.
What Belongs to Fraxin and What Doesn’t
Fraxin is a minor molecule surrounded by better-known neighbours, and the main risk on a page like this is that it inherits their properties. Three claims sit adjacent to fraxin and belong to something else.
Not esculin’s toxicity. Esculin is the coumarin named as a reason raw horse chestnut is not eaten and the one reduced during aescin standardisation. Fraxin shares the bark and the chemical class and none of that history: no isolated-toxicity signal appears in the reviewed literature, and in every injury model below it is protective rather than harmful 1Reference 1ReviewPharmacological Activities of Plant-Derived Fraxin with Molecular Mechanisms: A Comprehensive Review — reviewView study →.
Not the uricosuric effect. Cortex Fraxini has a long anti-gout reputation, and there is real rodent evidence for it — but the study that produced it used the whole coumarin fraction of ash bark against oxonate-induced hyperuricemia, not isolated fraxin 11Reference 11AnimalProtective effects of Cortex Fraxini coumarines against oxonate-induced hyperuricemia and renal dysfunction in mice — mouse modelView study →. Ash bark carries fraxin, fraxetin, esculin and esculetin together, and the fraction’s activity has never been apportioned between them. Fraxin should not be called uricosuric.
Not warfarin’s mechanism. Fraxin’s aglycone is a 7,8-dihydroxy-6-methoxycoumarin. The anticoagulant coumarins are 4-hydroxycoumarins, a different substitution pattern with a different target, so the “coumarins thin the blood” claim does not reach any molecule in this set — the same discipline that applies to scopoletin and esculetin.
What is left is fraxin’s own: a reproducible rodent NF-κB story, hepatoprotection in toxin models, and a newer ferroptosis result. And one honest complication that runs the other way — because fraxin is a glucoside, some of what is credited to it in vivo is probably its aglycone’s work, which makes the isolate question below unusually literal.
What It's Used For
Fraxin is a coumarin glucoside — fraxetin 8-O-glucoside — and one of the minor coumarins of horse-chestnut and ash bark, grouped with esculin as the seed’s coumarin fraction. Its research is entirely preclinical, and as a glucoside much of the in-vivo activity is plausibly its aglycone fraxetin’s.
Fraxin’s most reproduced signal is NF-κB restraint across acute injury models: LPS-induced acute lung injury via NF-κB/NLRP3 2Reference 2AnimalFraxin ameliorates lipopolysaccharide-induced acute lung injury in mice by inhibiting the NF-κB and NLRP3 signalling pathways — mouse modelView study →, ARDS with reduced pulmonary vascular permeability 3Reference 3AnimalFraxin Alleviates LPS-Induced ARDS by Downregulating Inflammatory Responses and Oxidative Damages and Reducing Pulmonary Vascular Permeability — animal modelView study →, ulcerative colitis via TLR4/NF-κB and MAPK 4Reference 4AnimalFraxin Ameliorates Ulcerative Colitis by Modulating Oxidative Stress, Inflammation and TLR4/NF-κB and MAPK Signaling Pathways — animal modelView study →, and cerebral ischemia-reperfusion via PPAR-γ/NF-κB 5Reference 5AnimalProtective effects of fraxin on cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury by mediating neuroinflammation and oxidative stress through the PPAR-γ/NF-κB pathway — animal modelView study →.
Gap: all acute rodent/cell models, in single-lab clusters, with no human data and model-specific effect sizes 2,
Fraxin reduced CCl₄-induced hepatotoxicity in vitro and in vivo through hepatic antioxidant/anti-inflammatory action and MAPK-NF-κB regulation 6Reference 6In vitroHepatoprotective effect of fraxin against carbon tetrachloride-induced hepatotoxicity in vitro and in vivo through regulating hepatic antioxidant, inflammation response and the MAPK-NF-κB signaling pathway — in vitro and animal modelView study →, and protected against a second chemically-induced hepatotoxicity model by lowering oxidative stress 7Reference 7AnimalFraxin Prevents Chemically Induced Hepatotoxicity by Reducing Oxidative Stress — animal modelView study →.
Gap: rodent/cell only, in the classic “reduce oxidative stress in a toxin model” design, with no clinical translation 6,
Fraxin and structurally related compounds protect cells from oxidative stress 8Reference 8In vitroNatural compounds, fraxin and chemicals structurally related to fraxin, protect cells from oxidative stress — in vitroView study →, consistent with the coumarin scaffold’s Keap1/Nrf2/ARE modulation reviewed for the class 1Reference 1ReviewPharmacological Activities of Plant-Derived Fraxin with Molecular Mechanisms: A Comprehensive Review — reviewView study →.
Gap: foundational hydroxycoumarin radical-scavenging chemistry shared across the esculin/esculetin/fraxetin family — largely class-level, not fraxin-specific, with no in-vivo human antioxidant readout 1,
An emerging rodent cluster: fraxin delays glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis via Nrf2/GPX4 (restraining ferroptosis) 9Reference 9AnimalDelay the progression of glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis: Fraxin targets ferroptosis via the Nrf2/GPX4 pathway — animal modelView study → and prevents knee osteoarthritis by inhibiting chondrocyte apoptosis 10Reference 10AnimalFraxin Prevents Knee Osteoarthritis through Inhibiting Chondrocyte Apoptosis in an Experimental Rat Osteoarthritis Model — rat in vivo animal modelView study →.
Gap: the newest and least replicated theme, entirely preclinical 9,
Mechanisms
| Target / pathway | Effect | Relevant to |
|---|---|---|
| NF-κB | suppressed activation | anti-inflammatoryhepatoprotective |
| NLRP3 inflammasome; TLR4 / MAPK | suppressed; downregulated | acute lung injurycolitis |
| PPAR-γ | activated (anti-inflammatory) | cerebral ischemia-reperfusion |
| Nrf2 / GPX4 / ARE | activated; restrains ferroptosis | antioxidantbone |
| ROS / oxidative stress | direct scavenging + lowered | hepato/bone/antioxidant |
All mechanisms are preclinical (rodent/cell).
Pharmacokinetics
Fraxin is a coumarin O-glucoside, so it follows the pattern of its class: poorly absorbed intact, and hydrolysed by gut and microbial β-glucosidases to its aglycone fraxetin — the same arrangement as esculin → esculetin.
One experiment measures all four molecules at once, which makes the pattern hard to argue with. Beagle dogs given a single oral dose of a Ledum palustre extract reached peak plasma concentrations of 67.04 ± 12.09 ng/mL of fraxin against 369.7 ± 48.87 ng/mL of fraxetin — the aglycone five and a half times higher — while in the same animals esculin reached 46.75 ng/mL against esculetin’s 209.9 ng/mL 12Reference 12Simultaneous Determination of Aesculin, Aesculetin, Fraxetin, Fraxin and Polydatin in Beagle Dog Plasma by UPLC-ESI-MS/MS and Its Application in a Pharmacokinetic Study after Oral Administration Extracts of Ledum palustre L. — animal pharmacokinetic modelView study →. Fraxin peaked earliest of the four, at 0.83 ± 0.18 hours.
The consequence is direct: an oral dose of fraxin delivers mostly fraxetin, so the rodent results above are, in exposure terms, partly fraxetin results, and no study in this literature separates the two. There is no human pharmacokinetic data for either.
Clinical Trials
There are no human clinical trials of isolated fraxin. Human exposure occurs only as an untargeted minor constituent of Cortex Fraxini and horse-chestnut preparations, where any activity belongs to the whole extract.
| Completed | Planned | Terminated | Preclinical |
|---|---|---|---|
| —(none, isolate) | — | — | Moderate(single-lab clusters) |
Last checked: September 2026.
Isolate vs. Plant Studies
The isolate/plant question has an extra layer here, because there are three things it could mean and the answers differ.
Isolate vs. whole extract. Every pharmacology result above used purified fraxin at a stated rodent
dose 2,
Isolate vs. its own aglycone. This is the one that is not clean. Fraxin is poorly absorbed and cleaved to fraxetin, which reaches roughly five times the plasma concentration from the same dose 12Reference 12Simultaneous Determination of Aesculin, Aesculetin, Fraxetin, Fraxin and Polydatin in Beagle Dog Plasma by UPLC-ESI-MS/MS and Its Application in a Pharmacokinetic Study after Oral Administration Extracts of Ledum palustre L. — animal pharmacokinetic modelView study →, so “isolated fraxin, given orally” and “fraxetin, delivered slowly” are hard to tell apart. No study dosed both and compared. It is a real limit on every in-vivo claim here — although the in-vitro cell-protection work 8Reference 8In vitroNatural compounds, fraxin and chemicals structurally related to fraxin, protect cells from oxidative stress — in vitroView study →, where no gut is involved, does belong to fraxin as such.
Isolate vs. the herb people actually use. Nobody takes fraxin. It reaches people as one minor coumarin in ash bark or horse-chestnut material, at unquantified levels, and no clinical trial of either preparation exists to transfer.
Its Role in Plants
Fraxin has the most interesting plant biology of any molecule in this set, and it is about iron.
Plants growing in neutral or alkaline soil face a supply problem: iron is abundant but locked up as insoluble Fe³⁺. Arabidopsis solves it by secreting coumarins from its roots, and the key one is fraxin’s aglycone. The enzyme scopoletin 8-hydroxylase converts scopoletin to fraxetin, and it is strongly induced in the roots of iron-starved plants; mutants that cannot make it secrete less fraxetin and grow badly on alkaline media with immobilised iron, while overexpressing lines do the opposite. Fraxetin reduces Fe³⁺ in vitro, and notably it does so better at neutral pH than at acidic pH — exactly where a plant needs the help. Across natural Arabidopsis accessions, the amount of fraxetin secreted correlates with growth, iron content and chlorophyll, making it a determinant of which plants can live on chalky soil at all 13Reference 13Scopoletin 8-Hydroxylase-Mediated Fraxetin Production Is Crucial for Iron MobilizationView study →. The same iron-deficiency response produces a family of related redox-active coumarins 14Reference 14Biosynthesis of redox-active metabolites in response to iron deficiency in plantsView study →.
Fraxin is the storage and transport form of that molecule: glucosylation at the 8-position makes it water-soluble, chemically quiet and safe to accumulate — the same logic that makes esculin the storage form of esculetin. The biosynthetic chain runs scopoletin → fraxetin → fraxin, which is why ash bark carries the whole series rather than any one of them.
That iron chemistry is not confined to plants, and it is worth noticing where it reappears. Fraxin’s most distinctive pharmacological result is that it restrains ferroptosis — iron-dependent cell death — through Nrf2/GPX4 in a glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis model 9Reference 9AnimalDelay the progression of glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis: Fraxin targets ferroptosis via the Nrf2/GPX4 pathway — animal modelView study →. A molecule whose plant job is handling Fe³⁺ turning up in iron-dependent cell death is a connection to hold lightly. It has not been tested as a mechanism, and the two settings are not otherwise linked.
Prevalence in Nature
Fraxin is an Oleaceae molecule first, and a minor constituent everywhere it occurs. Its name and
its principal source are the same: ash (Fraxinus), whose bark — Cortex Fraxini — is a herbal
material in its own right and carries fraxin alongside fraxetin, esculin and esculetin 11,
It is also present in horse-chestnut bark and seed, where it was first identified, grouped with
esculin as the seed’s coumarin fraction 15Reference 15Ueber das Vorkommen des Fraxin in der Rinde von Aesculus HippocastanumView study →. Beyond those two genera it appears in marsh Labrador tea
(Ledum palustre) — the plant used in the comparative dog pharmacokinetic study 12Reference 12Simultaneous Determination of Aesculin, Aesculetin, Fraxetin, Fraxin and Polydatin in Beagle Dog Plasma by UPLC-ESI-MS/MS and Its Application in a Pharmacokinetic Study after Oral Administration Extracts of Ledum palustre L. — animal pharmacokinetic modelView study → — and, as
fraxetin, in the root exudates of a wide range of plants under iron deficiency 13,
No quantified content figure was found for any source, so the table below records source and part rather than concentration.
Major Natural Sources
| Source | Family | Part | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ash (Fraxinus spp., Cortex Fraxini) | Oleaceae | Bark | The principal source; with fraxetin, esculin and esculetin 11, |
| Manna ash (Fraxinus ornus) | Oleaceae | Bark | Named source |
| Horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) | Sapindaceae | Bark, seed | Where fraxin was first identified 15Reference 15Ueber das Vorkommen des Fraxin in der Rinde von Aesculus HippocastanumView study →; grouped with esculin |
| Marsh Labrador tea (Ledum palustre) | Ericaceae | Aerial | The extract used in the comparative dog PK study 12Reference 12Simultaneous Determination of Aesculin, Aesculetin, Fraxetin, Fraxin and Polydatin in Beagle Dog Plasma by UPLC-ESI-MS/MS and Its Application in a Pharmacokinetic Study after Oral Administration Extracts of Ledum palustre L. — animal pharmacokinetic modelView study → |
Discovery & Synthesis
Fraxin is named for the ash, Fraxinus, and like the other bark coumarins it was picked up in the mid-nineteenth century because it crystallised and fluoresced. The aglycone was described as “Fraxetin” in 1859, and in 1860 Friedrich Rochleder reported finding fraxin in the bark of Aesculus hippocastanum — establishing that the ash coumarin and the horse-chestnut coumarins were the same family of substances, which is why the two barks have been discussed together ever since 15Reference 15Ueber das Vorkommen des Fraxin in der Rinde von Aesculus HippocastanumView study →.
The aglycone was synthesised in 1938 by Ernst Späth and E. Dobrovolny, who made fraxetin, fraxidin and iso-fraxidin in one paper — the forty-second in Späth’s series on natural coumarins, the same series that settled osthole and imperatorin 16Reference 16Synthese des Fraxetins, des Fraxidins und des Iso-fraxidins (XLIIView study →. The glucoside itself is not usefully synthesised; extraction from bark is trivial by comparison.
Manufacture today is extraction, from ash or horse-chestnut bark, for research and analytical use. Fraxin is a reference standard in the quality control of Cortex Fraxini rather than a product in its own right, and there is no licensed drug or supplement containing it.
Patents: not yet researched.
Toxicity & Safety
Fraxin is the benign co-coumarin of horse chestnut, not the toxic one — it should not inherit esculin’s reputation, and it is not a blood thinner. What it lacks is any human data at all.
- No isolated-toxicity signal. Nothing appears in the reviewed literature, and in the injury models it is uniformly protective rather than toxic.
- No safety study has been done. No repeat-dose, genotoxicity, interaction or human data — the absence of a signal is not a clean result.
- Not a warfarin-type anticoagulant. A 7,8-dihydroxy/6-methoxy coumarin via fraxetin, not a 4-hydroxycoumarin — the “coumarins thin the blood” claim does not apply.
- Avoid in pregnancy and lactation. No reproductive-safety data on the isolate.
- Do not inherit esculin’s framing. The “toxic component removed during standardization” story is esculin-specific and not fraxin’s.
- Not uricosuric on its own. The classic Cortex Fraxini anti-gout use rests on the whole coumarin fraction, not isolated fraxin.
Full Safety & Interactions Detail
Fraxin is a minor dietary and medicinal coumarin glucoside with low apparent toxicity — no isolated-toxicity signal appears in the reviewed literature 1Reference 1ReviewPharmacological Activities of Plant-Derived Fraxin with Molecular Mechanisms: A Comprehensive Review — reviewView study →, and across every injury model above it is protective rather than harmful. The three inheritance traps are handled above: it is not esculin, it is not uricosuric on its own, and it is not a warfarin-type anticoagulant, so any coumarin-bleeding caution here is theoretical.
What has not been assessed. There is no repeat-dose toxicology, genotoxicity package, drug-interaction study or human exposure data for isolated fraxin. Its low flag reflects the absence of any signal in studies that were not looking for one, which is weaker evidence than a clean toxicology package — and weaker again given that an oral dose is largely delivering fraxetin, whose own safety profile is a separate question 12Reference 12Simultaneous Determination of Aesculin, Aesculetin, Fraxetin, Fraxin and Polydatin in Beagle Dog Plasma by UPLC-ESI-MS/MS and Its Application in a Pharmacokinetic Study after Oral Administration Extracts of Ledum palustre L. — animal pharmacokinetic modelView study →.
Dosage
There is no established human dose — fraxin has never been given to a person as an isolate, and it is not sold as a supplement. The figures below are the exposures used in the research described above.
| Setting | Model | Dose used |
|---|---|---|
| Acute lung injury / ARDS | Mouse, oral or i.p. | Rodent mg/kg 2, |
| Ulcerative colitis | Rodent, oral | Rodent mg/kg 4Reference 4AnimalFraxin Ameliorates Ulcerative Colitis by Modulating Oxidative Stress, Inflammation and TLR4/NF-κB and MAPK Signaling Pathways — animal modelView study → |
| Hepatoprotection (CCl₄ and chemical) | Rodent | Rodent mg/kg 6, |
| Osteoporosis, osteoarthritis | Rodent | Rodent mg/kg 9, |
| Comparative pharmacokinetics | Beagle dog, oral (as plant extract) | Cmax 67.04 ng/mL at 0.83 h 12Reference 12Simultaneous Determination of Aesculin, Aesculetin, Fraxetin, Fraxin and Polydatin in Beagle Dog Plasma by UPLC-ESI-MS/MS and Its Application in a Pharmacokinetic Study after Oral Administration Extracts of Ledum palustre L. — animal pharmacokinetic modelView study → |
Two things make these harder than usual to translate. The published reports give rodent milligrams per kilogram without a consistent oral/parenteral split, and the oral route delivers mostly fraxetin rather than fraxin 12Reference 12Simultaneous Determination of Aesculin, Aesculetin, Fraxetin, Fraxin and Polydatin in Beagle Dog Plasma by UPLC-ESI-MS/MS and Its Application in a Pharmacokinetic Study after Oral Administration Extracts of Ledum palustre L. — animal pharmacokinetic modelView study → — so a “fraxin dose” and a fraxin exposure are not the same quantity. Herbal exposure is indirect and unquantified, through ash bark or horse-chestnut material. These are doses studied in research and are not a personal recommendation.
References
- Ferdous J, Bhuia MS, Chowdhury R, et al. (2024). Pharmacological Activities of Plant-Derived Fraxin with Molecular Mechanisms: A Comprehensive Review — review. Chemistry & Biodiversity. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38506600/
- Li W, Li W, Zang L, et al. (2019). Fraxin ameliorates lipopolysaccharide-induced acute lung injury in mice by inhibiting the NF-κB and NLRP3 signalling pathways — mouse model. International Immunopharmacology. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30530164/
- Ma X, Liu X, Feng J, et al. (2019). Fraxin Alleviates LPS-Induced ARDS by Downregulating Inflammatory Responses and Oxidative Damages and Reducing Pulmonary Vascular Permeability — animal model. Inflammation. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31273573/
- Sun W, Hang L, Chen L, et al. (2024). Fraxin Ameliorates Ulcerative Colitis by Modulating Oxidative Stress, Inflammation and TLR4/NF-κB and MAPK Signaling Pathways — animal model. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38518135/
- Yao H, Zhao J, Song X (2022). Protective effects of fraxin on cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury by mediating neuroinflammation and oxidative stress through the PPAR-γ/NF-κB pathway — animal model. Brain Research Bulletin. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35772607/
- Niu X, Liu F, Li W, et al. (2017). Hepatoprotective effect of fraxin against carbon tetrachloride-induced hepatotoxicity in vitro and in vivo through regulating hepatic antioxidant, inflammation response and the MAPK-NF-κB signaling pathway — in vitro and animal model. Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28922728/
- Chang BY, Jung YS, Yoon CS, et al. (2017). Fraxin Prevents Chemically Induced Hepatotoxicity by Reducing Oxidative Stress — animal model. Molecules. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28383514/
- Whang WK, Park HS, Ham I, et al. (2005). Natural compounds, fraxin and chemicals structurally related to fraxin, protect cells from oxidative stress — in vitro. Experimental & Molecular Medicine. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16264268/
- Zheng X, Ye FC, Sun T, et al. (2024). Delay the progression of glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis: Fraxin targets ferroptosis via the Nrf2/GPX4 pathway — animal model. Phytotherapy Research. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39192711/
- Qian Z, Ru X, Liu C, et al. (2021). Fraxin Prevents Knee Osteoarthritis through Inhibiting Chondrocyte Apoptosis in an Experimental Rat Osteoarthritis Model — rat in vivo animal model. Protein and Peptide Letters. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34719360/
- Li JM, Zhang X, Wang X, et al. (2011). Protective effects of Cortex Fraxini coumarines against oxonate-induced hyperuricemia and renal dysfunction in mice — mouse model. European Journal of Pharmacology. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21620826/
- Wang Z, Zhu W, Liu H, et al. (2018). Simultaneous Determination of Aesculin, Aesculetin, Fraxetin, Fraxin and Polydatin in Beagle Dog Plasma by UPLC-ESI-MS/MS and Its Application in a Pharmacokinetic Study after Oral Administration Extracts of Ledum palustre L. — animal pharmacokinetic model. Molecules. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30205426/
- Tsai HH, Rodríguez-Celma J, Lan P, et al. (2018). Scopoletin 8-Hydroxylase-Mediated Fraxetin Production Is Crucial for Iron Mobilization. Plant Physiology. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29559590/
- Rajniak J, Giehl RFH, Chang E, et al. (2018). Biosynthesis of redox-active metabolites in response to iron deficiency in plants. Nature Chemical Biology. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29581584/
- Rochleder F (1860). Ueber das Vorkommen des Fraxin in der Rinde von Aesculus Hippocastanum. Journal für Praktische Chemie. https://doi.org/10.1002/prac.18600800117
- Späth E, Dobrovolny E (1938). Synthese des Fraxetins, des Fraxidins und des Iso-fraxidins (XLII. Mitteil. über natürliche Cumarine). Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft. https://doi.org/10.1002/cber.19380710910
