Dipsacus asper Wall. ex C.B. Clarke, a traditional Chinese herbal medicine, has long been used in China for the therapy of bone diseases (e.g. bone fracture, osteoporosis, rheumatic arthritis), traumatic hematoma, uterine bleeding and those caused by the deficiency of liver and kidney.This work aims to evaluate current research progress on chemical constituents, pharmacological activities, quality control, and pharmacokinetic of Dipsacus asper Wall. ex C.B. Clarke, pinpoint the shortcomings of existing studies, and provide meaningful guidelines for our future investigations.Extensive database retrieval, such as PubMed, SciFinder and CNKI, was carried out by using keywords such as "Dipsacus asper", "Radix Dipsaci", and "Xuduan". Furthermore, relevant textbooks, patents, reviews, and digital documents were consulted to collate all available scientific literature and to provide a complete science-based survey of the topic.More than 100 compounds have been isolated and identified from Dipsacus asper Wall. ex C.B. Clarke, a substantial proportion of which were reported to be triterpenoids and iridoids. Biological effects such as protective effects against bone fracture, anti-osteoporosis, neuroprotective, cardioprotective, anti-aging and protection of reproductive system activities were also evaluated in vitro and in vivo.Diaphoretic processing resulted in the drop in the content of asperosaponin VI, which was highly associated with bone protective effect of DA. Therefore, diaphoretic processing was not a suitable processing method for DA. Although Dipsacus asper Wall. ex C.B. Clarke was traditionally used for therapy of osteoarthritis, the in-depth study of the underlying mechanism was very rare. Much endeavor had been made on the effect of DA on bone fracture. Notably, high-dose of Dipsacus asper administration may cause adverse impacts in maternal healthy and embryo-fetal development. It's not suitable for further development in those bioactivities, such as anti-inflammatory and free radical scavenging, which are shared in many other plant species. Pharmacological effects of individual component of DA is not equivalent to its traditional usage. Attention should be paid to the traditional effect of extract of DA.
