Fructus schisandrae (Wuweizi in Chinese), a common traditional Chinese herbal medicine, has been used for centuries to treat chronic liver disease. The therapeutic efficacy of Wuweizi has also been validated in clinical practice. In this study, molecular docking and network analysis were carried out to explore the hepatoprotective mechanism of Wuweizi as an effective therapeutic approach to treat liver disease. Multiple active compounds of Wuweizi were docked with 44 protein targets related with viral hepatitis, fatty liver, liver fibrosis, cirrhosis, and liver cancer. A compound–target network was constructed through network pharmacology analysis, predicting the relationships of active ingredients to the targets. Our results demonstrated that schisantherin, schisandrin B, schisandrol B, kadsurin, Wuweizisu C, Gomisin A, Gomisin G, and angeloylgomisin may target with 21 intracellular proteins associated with liver diseases, especially with fatty liver disease. The CYP2E1, PPARα, and AMPK genes and their related pathway may play a pivotal role in the hepatoprotective effects of Wuweizi. The network pharmacology strategy used provides a forceful tool for searching the action mechanism of traditional herbal medicines and novel bioactive ingredients.

Two novel chalcone constituents, tarennane (1) and tarennone (2), together with nine known compounds, were isolated from the whole plant of Tarenna attenuata. By analysis of physical and spectroscopic data, the structures of new compounds were elucidated as (E)-4-[3-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-acryl]-3,4,5-trimethoxycyclohexa-2,5-dienone (1) and 1,2-bis(3,5-dimethoxy-4-hydroxyphenyl)-3-hydroxypropan-1-one (2). These two compounds were tested for antioxidant activities in the MTT and DPPH assays. Compound 1 revealed potent antioxidant activities against H₂O₂-induced impairment in PC12 cells, but neither of them showed DPPH radical-scavenging activity with IC₅₀ values of 181.1 and 210.3 μM, respectively.

A biomimetic synthetic strategy and combinatorial chemistry were used to synthesize 34 novel monoterpenoid indole alkaloid (MIA) analogues, and their cytotoxic activities against five cancer cell lines (SW-480, A-549, HL-60, SMMC-7721, and MCF-7) were determined using the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-5-(3-carboxymethoxyphenyl)-2-(4-sulfophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium (MTS) assay. Fourteen of these analogues (7, 16–18, and 23–32) showed significantly greater inhibition of tumour cell proliferation than cisplatin. Compounds 17 and 18 showed the highest cytotoxic activity against the HL-60 cell line with IC₅₀ values of 0.90 μM and 0.43 μM, respectively. Compound 18 slightly induced apoptosis and arrested the cell cycle in SW-480, A-549, HL-60, SMMC-7721, and MCF-7 cells. Analysis of the primary structure–activity relationships reveals that the introduction of different substituent groups at the C-3, C-5, and C-6 positions of the indole moiety and the C-10 position of the genipin moiety might have an effect on the antitumour activity of the resulting compounds.