Figure 1. Schematic illustration of bioactivity-guided fast screen for cancer metastatic chemopreventive materials from raw extracts of M. paniculata.

(A) Photographs of typical M. paniculata. (B) Procedures of extracting bioactive materials from the plant twigs: the twigs were collected and smashed to pieces, and immersed and refluxed with 75% ethanol overnight. The concentrated residual was extracted with dichloromethane, which was concentrated and subjected to gradient silica chromatographic separation. (C) Bioactivity-guided fast screen for active raw materials: the concentrated eluates (fractions A-H) were diluted with cell medium, and tested for their inhibition against cancer cell viability (IC₅₀) and mobility (EC₅₀). The fast screen index was calculated by dividing IC₅₀ by EC₅₀ of each eluted fraction. The fraction with the highest index was selected, i.e., G, as the best candidate fraction for further composition analysis and in vitro and in vivo tests (D).