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[email protected] 56 Mini-Reviews in Medicinal Chemistry, 2014, 14, 56-63 Naturally Occurring Methyl Salicylate Glycosides Ping Mao#, Zizhen Liu#, Meng Xie, Rui Jiang, Weirui Liu, Xiaohong Wang, Shen Meng* and Gaimei She* School of Chinese Pharmacy, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100102, China Abstract: As an important part of non steroids anti-inflammation drug (NSAIDs), salicylate has developed from natural substance salicylic acid to natrium salicylicum, to aspirin. Now, methyl salicylate glycoside, a new derivative of salicylic acid, is modified with a -COOH group integrated one methyl radical into formic ether, and a -OH linked with a monosaccharide, a disaccharide or a trisaccharide unit by glycosidic linkage. It has the similar pharmacological activities, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antipyretic and antithrombotic as the previous salicylates’ without resulting in serious side effects, particularly the gastrointestinal toxicity. Owing to the superiority of those significant bioactivities, methyl salicylate glycosides have became a hot research area in NSAIDs for several years. This paper compiles all 9 naturally occurring methyl salicylate glycosides, their distribution of the resource and pharmacological mechanism, which could contribute to the new drug discovery. Keywords: Analgesic, anti-inflammation, antipyretic, methyl salicylate glycoside, NSAIDs. INTRODUCTION centre free salicylic acid until it passed the stomach [4, 5]. The salicylate derivatives, including aspirin (acetyl-salicylic The active centre is not exposed in the stomach to inhitibit acid), are well known as important members of NSAIDs. gastrointestinal COX. In addition, their acidic group has They are widely used as antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, been masked to minimize interaction with gastric tissues [6].