Hepatoprotective pyrrole derivatives of Lycium chinense fruits

As a part of our search for hepatoprotective compounds from Lycium chinense fruits, three new pyrrole derivatives (1-3) were isolated. These compounds and a related synthetic methylated compound (4) were evaluated for their biological activity and structure-activity relationship, and compounds 1 and 2 showed hepatoprotective effects comparable to silybin at the concentration of 0.1 muM (64.4 and 65.8%, respectively). (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.