Abstract

Liverworts, widely used as traditional Chinese medicine, are a rich source of structurally diverse secondary metabolites with intriguing biological activities. Given that diterpenoids present in liverwort species possess striking scaffoldings and considering the absence of any previous review on this subject, we present an updated analysis of the diterpenes in liverworts along with their biological activities based on literature dated from 1997 to present. This comprehensive effort is expected to lay the foundation for further research on the diterpenes in liverworts.

Keywords: Diterpenes, liverworts, phytochemistry, classification, structure, bioactivity.