Lead/Drug Discovery from Natural Resources

• Published in: Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 27; no. 23; p. 8280
• Main Authors: Xu, Zhihong, Eichler, Barrett, Klausner, Eytan A, Duffy-Matzner, Jetty, Zheng, Weifan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 28-11-2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Anti-Infective Agents; antibacterial; Antibiotics; anticancer; Antiinfectives and antibacterials; antimalarial; Antineoplastic Agents - chemistry; Antineoplastic Agents - pharmacology; antiviral; Bioinformatics; Biological activity; Biological products; Biological Products - chemistry; Cancer; Care and treatment; Caspofungin; Chemical compounds; Chinese medicine; Clinical trials; computer-assisted; Drospirenone; Drug approval; Drug development; drug discovery; Drug Discovery - methods; Drug resistance; Exenatide; FDA approval; Health aspects; Herbal medicine; Hypoxia; Kinases; Lead compounds; Lee, Kuo-Hsiung; Malaria; Molecular modelling; Natural products; Natural Resources; Neomycin; Neurological disorders; Pharmacology; Proteins; R&D; Research & development; Review; Rifamycins; Tetracycline; Tetracyclines; Vincristine; Ziconotide; United States > US; lead discovery; drug discovery; natural product; antiviral; antibacterial; antimalarial; anticancer; computer-assisted
• ISSN: 1420-3049; 1420-3049
• DOI: 10.3390/molecules27238280

Natural products and their derivatives have been shown to be effective drug candidates against various diseases for many years. Over a long period of time, nature has produced an abundant and prosperous source pool for novel therapeutic agents with distinctive structures. Major natural-product-based drugs approved for clinical use include anti-infectives and anticancer agents. This paper will review some natural-product-related potent anticancer, anti-HIV, antibacterial and antimalarial drugs or lead compounds mainly discovered from 2016 to 2022. Structurally typical marine bioactive products are also included. Molecular modeling, machine learning, bioinformatics and other computer-assisted techniques that are very important in narrowing down bioactive core structural scaffolds and helping to design new structures to fight against key disease-associated molecular targets based on available natural products are considered and briefly reviewed.