Phenylethanoid glycosides (PhGs) are widely distributed in traditional Chinese medicines as well as in other medicinal plants, and they were characterized by a phenethyl alcohol (C 6 -C 2 ) moiety attached to a β-glucopyranose/β-allopyranose via a glycosidic bond. The outstanding activity of PhGs in diverse diseases proves their importance in medicinal chemistry research. This review summarizes new findings on PhGs over the past 10 years, concerning the new structures, their bioactivities, including neuroprotective, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antibacterial and antivirus, cytotoxic, immunomodulatory, and enzyme inhibitory effects, and pharmacokinetic properties.

Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is a severe, toxic side effect that frequently occurs in anticancer treatment and may result in discontinuation of treatment as well as a serious reduction in life quality. The CIPN incidence rate is as high as 85–90%. Unfortunately, there is currently no standard evidence-based CIPN treatment. In several clinical trials, it has been reported that duloxetine can improve CIPN pain induced by oxaliplatin (OXA) and paclitaxel (PTX); thus, The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) recommends duloxetine as the only potential treatment for CIPN. However, this guidance lacks the support of sufficient evidence. Our study shows that duloxetine markedly reduces neuropathic pain evoked by OXA or PTX. Duloxetine acts by inhibiting the activation of p38 phosphorylation, thus preventing the activation and nuclear translocation of the NF-κB transcription factor, reducing the inflammatory response and inhibiting nerve injury by regulating nerve growth factor (NGF). Furthermore, in this study, it is shown that duloxetine does not affect the antitumor activity of OXA or PTX. This study not only provides biological evidence to support the use of duloxetine as the first standard CIPN drug but will also lead to potential new targets for CIPN drug development.

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Magnoliae officinalis cortex (MOC), derived from Magnolia officinalis and its variation M. officinalis var. biloba, is an important traditional Chinese medicine. In our previous work, 11 hydrophilic ingredients of MOC were isolated and structurally elucidated and four, namely syringin (SG), magnoloside A (MA), magnoloside B (MB) and magnoflorine (MF), showed bioactive effects. Herein, we describe an HPLC-DAD method for the simultaneous quantitative determination of MA, MB, MF and SG in MOC for the first time. The chromatographic separation of samples was performed on an Agilent Zorbax SB-C18 column (250 × 4.6 mm i.d., 5 µm) by gradient elution with water-acetic acid (pH 3.0) and methanol at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The wavelengths were set at 265 nm for MF and SG, and 328 nm for MA and MB. The average recovery of the four compounds was from 97.63 to 103.84%. Nearly 100 MOC samples harvested from eight habitats were analyzed in which the contents of the tested compound varied in the range of 0.016-0.350% (MF), 0.010-0.337% (SG), 0.017-3.009% (MB) and 0.077-2.529% (MA). The analysis also indicated that MOC contains a significant amount of phenylethanoid glycosides. This was an unexpected finding because previously lignan was considered to be the main component of MOC.