In this review, we summarized the distribution of the chemically investigated Oceanapia sponges, including the isolation and biological activities of their secondary metabolites, covering the literature from the first report in 1989 to July 2019. There have been 110 compounds reported during this period, including 59 alkaloids, 33 lipids, 14 sterols and 4 miscellaneous compounds. Besides their unique structures, they exhibited promising bioactivities ranging from insecticidal to antibacterial. Their complex structural characteristics and diverse biological properties have attracted a great deal of attention from chemists and pharmaceuticals seeking to perform their applications in the treatment of disease.

Ophiorrhiza japonica Bl. is a traditional Chinese materia medica widely used to treat several diseases. Chemical and pharmacological studies on O. japonica have been carried out; however, neither of them has been fully explored. In this study, an array of compounds was isolated from the title plant, including a new anthraquinone, ophiorrhizaquinone A (1), three alkaloids 2–4 and seven other compounds 5–11 with diverse structural types. Additionally, compounds 2, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 11 were isolated from the genus of Ophiorrhiza for the first time. Antioxidant bioassays in vitro using DPPH and ABTS were performed, and the results showed that compound 3 exhibited modest antioxidant activity with IC50 values of 0.0321 mg/mL and 0.0319 mg/mL, respectively. An in silico study of PPARα agonistic activities of compounds 2 and 3 was conducted by molecular docking experiments, revealing that both of them occupied the active site of PPARα via hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions effectively. This study enriched both the phytochemical and pharmacological profiles of O. japonica.