methylparaben

CHEBI:31835 ·resolve ·ANTIFUNGAL ·EXACT SEEDED

A 4-hydroxybenzoate ester resulting from the formal condensation of the carboxy group of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid with methanol. It is the most frequently used antimicrobial preservative in cosmetics. It occurs naturally in several fruits, particularly in blueberries. — ChEBI

Machine-generated and unreviewed. Identity, structure and cross-references come straight from ChEBI's and CARD's own data; no curator has signed off on this record yet.

Classification

Strictly broader compounds or drug classes this molecule belongs to.

Label unavailable CHEBI:85122

Chemical structure

Computed structure properties
Molecular formula	C8H8O3
Charge	0
Average mass	152.149 Da
Monoisotopic mass	152.04734 Da
Source	ChEBI
InChIKey	LXCFILQKKLGQFO-UHFFFAOYSA-N

SMILES

COC(=O)c1ccc(O)cc1

InChI

InChI=1S/C8H8O3/c1-11-8(10)6-2-4-7(9)5-3-6/h2-5,9H,1H3

Also called

Maseptol (BRAND_NAME)— chebi
Metaben (BRAND_NAME)— chebi
Methaben (BRAND_NAME)— chebi
Methyl butex (BRAND_NAME)— chebi
Methyl chemosept (BRAND_NAME)— chebi
Metoxyde (BRAND_NAME)— chebi
Moldex (BRAND_NAME)— chebi
Nipagin (BRAND_NAME)— chebi
Paridol (BRAND_NAME)— chebi
Preserval (BRAND_NAME)— chebi
Septos (BRAND_NAME)— chebi
Solbrol (BRAND_NAME)— chebi
Tegosept M (BRAND_NAME)— chebi
methyl 4-hydroxybenzoate (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
4-hydroxybenzoic acid methyl ester (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
E 218 (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
E218 (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
FEMA No. 2710 (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
INS No. 218 (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
INS number 218 (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
Methyl parahydroxybenzoate (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
methyl p-hydroxybenzoate (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
methyl paraben (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
p-Oxybenzoesauremethylester (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
p-carbomethoxyphenol (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
p-hydroxybenzoic acid methyl ester (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi
p-methoxycarbonylphenol (EXACT_SYNONYM)— chebi

Cross-references

Identifiers for this same structure in other resources. An accession that lands on two different structures in this corpus is withheld from both rather than shown here, since it names at most one of them.

Drug registries

Identifiers that name a drug rather than a structure. One of these can cover a parent compound, its salts and its stereoisomers, which this corpus keeps as separate records, so it is not an equivalence of structure.

Patents and articles

Documents about this compound. A patent covers a class and an article covers a topic; neither identifies a structure.

wikipedia.en:Methylparaben

Activity roles

Every antimicrobial role a source asserts for this compound — the unreduced evidence behind its antimicrobial_class.

antifungal agent CHEBI:35718
antimicrobial food preservative CHEBI:65256

Source concepts

Every upstream concept that resolved to this record. The merge is the product: this is what shows ChEBI and CARD are describing the same structure.

Upstream concepts merged into this record
Source	Native ID	Label	Minted CURIE	Version
CHEBI	`CHEBI:31835`	methylparaben	`antibioticmech:chebi-205df798f0`	2026-08-30

Curation history

SEEDED_FROM_SOURCES 2026-08-30 · seed_from_sources
Seeded from data/raw/ inventories (CHEBI)
RESEEDED_FROM_SOURCES 2026-08-30 · seed_from_sources
Re-seeded from updated data/raw/ inventories
RESEEDED_FROM_SOURCES 2026-08-30 · seed_from_sources
Re-seeded from updated data/raw/ inventories
RESEEDED_FROM_SOURCES 2026-09-10 · seed_from_sources
Re-seeded from updated data/raw/ inventories

Provenance

Seeded by scripts/seed_from_sources.py from the committed inventories in data/raw/. View the record (YAML).

Explore across X-Mech: MediaIngredientMech (methylparaben) · CultureMech · NaturalProductMech · PathwayMech · TraitMech