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Saussurea laniceps (Compositae), commonly known as "cotton-headed snow lotus", is the most effective "snow lotus" used in both Tibetan and Chinese folk medicine. It performs outstandingly in treating rheumatoid arthritis, which mainly is credited for its anti-inflammatory and anti-nociceptive efficacy, as explained by modern pharmacological studies. Extracts of the herb, including umbelliferone and scopoletin, exert such effects in various in vivo and in vitro studies. Besides the two chemicals above, more than 100 organic compounds have been found in S. laniceps, and 58 of them are presented here in molecular structure, including cynaropicrin, mokko lactone, apigenin, acacetin, and luteolin, all contributing to different bioactivities, such as analgesic, antioxidant, immunomodulatory, anti-microbial and anticancer effects. We provide a natural product library of S. laniceps, giving inspirations for structure modification and bioactivity-oriented screening, enabling sustainable use of this valuable plant. The ethnomedical applications and pharmacological discoveries are compared and crosslinked, revealing modern evidence for traditional usages. Despite that S. laniceps is a representative "snow lotus" herb, its material medica records and clinical applications are complicated; there is considerable confusion with the different snow lotuses in the academic community and on the market. This review also aims at clearing such confusion, and improving quality assessment and control of the herb. To better utilize the valuable plant, further comparison among the chemical constitutions, pharmacological activities and therapeutic mechanisms of different snow lotuses are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In order to better understand the structural features of natural compounds from traditional Chinese medicines, the scaffold architectures of drug-like compounds in MACCS-II Drug Data Report (MDDR), non-drug-like compounds in Available Chemical Directory (ACD), and natural compounds in Traditional Chinese Medicine Compound Database (TCMCD) were explored and compared. Results: First, the different scaffolds were extracted from ACD, MDDR and TCMCD by using three scaffold representations, including Murcko frameworks, Scaffold Tree, and ring systems with different complexity and side chains. Then, by examining the accumulative frequency of the scaffolds in each dataset, we observed that the Level 1 scaffolds of the Scaffold Tree offer advantages over the other scaffold architectures to represent the scaffold diversity of the compound libraries. By comparing the similarity of the scaffold architectures presented in MDDR, ACD and TCMCD, structural overlaps were observed not only between MDDR and TCMCD but also between MDDR and ACD. Finally, Tree Maps were used to cluster the Level 1 scaffolds of the Scaffold Tree and visualize the scaffold space of the three datasets. Conclusion: The analysis of the scaffold architectures of MDDR, ACD and TCMCD shows that, on average, drug-like molecules in MDDR have the highest diversity while natural compounds in TCMCD have the highest complexity. According to the Tree Maps, it can be observed that the Level 1 scaffolds present in MDDR have higher diversity than those presented in TCMCD and ACD. However, some representative scaffolds in MDDR with high frequency show structural similarities to those in TCMCD and ACD, suggesting that some scaffolds in TCMCD and ACD may be potentially drug-like fragments for fragment-based and de novo drug design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]