What is "dicoumarol"

alt. An anticoagulant that functions as a vitamin K antagonist, also used in biochemical experiments as an inhibitor of reductases. n. An anticoagulant that functions as a vitamin K antagonist, also used in biochemical experiments as an inhibitor of reductases.

n. an anticoagulant drug that has now been largely replaced by warfarin [syn: dicumarol]

Dicoumarol ( INN) or dicumarol ( USAN) is a naturally occurring anticoagulant that functions as a functional vitamin K depleter (similar to warfarin, a drug that dicoumarol inspired). It is also used in biochemical experiments as an inhibitor of reductases.

Dicoumarol is a natural chemical substance of combined plant and fungal origin. It is a derivative of coumarin, a bitter-tasting but sweet-smelling substance made by plants that does not itself affect coagulation, but which is (classically) transformed in mouldy feeds or silages by a number of species of fungi, into active dicoumarol. Dicoumarol does affect coagulation, and was discovered in mouldy wet sweet-clover hay, as the cause of a naturally occurring bleeding disease in cattle. See warfarin for a more detailed discovery history.

Identified in 1940, dicoumarol became the prototype of the 4-hydroxycoumarin anticoagulant drug class. Dicoumarol itself, for a short time, was employed as a medicinal anticoagulant drug, but since the mid-1950s has been replaced by its simpler derivative warfarin, and other 4-hydroxycoumarin drugs.

It is given orally, and it acts within two days.