Picomolar antimalarial agent from a Chinese medicinal plant

In our long-term efforts searching for antimalarial agents from Chinese medicinal plants, seven novel dimeric sesquiterpenoids (1–7) with significant antimalarial activity were isolated and characterized from the whole plants of Sarcandra glabra subsp. brachystachys by solid data acquired by diverse methods. Among them, compound 3 with an EC50 value of 4.3 pM against the chloroquine-resistant Plasmodium falciparum is the most potent antimalarial agent reported hitherto, about 1,000-fold stronger than artemisinin. This article further consolidates and refines our previously delineated structure-activity relationship for this antimalarial compound class.