Discovery and resupply of pharmacologically active plant-derived natural products: A review

Atanas Atanasov, Birgit Waltenberger, Eva-Maria Pferschy-Wenzig, Tobias Linder, Christoph Wawrosch, Pavel Uhrin, Veronika Temml, Limei Wang, Stefan Schwaiger, Elke Heiß, Judith Maria Rollinger, Daniela Schuster, Johannes M. Breuss, Valery Bochkov, Marko Mihovilovic, Brigitte Kopp, Rudolf Bauer, Verena Dirsch, Hermann Stuppner

    Publications: Contribution to journalReviewPeer Reviewed

    Abstract

    Medicinal plants have historically proven their value as a source of molecules with therapeutic potential, and nowadays still represent an important pool for the identification of novel drug leads. In the past decades, pharmaceutical industry focused mainly on libraries of synthetic compounds as drug discovery source. They are comparably easy to produce and resupply, and demonstrate good compatibility with established high throughput screening (HTS) platforms. However, at the same time there has been a declining trend in the number of new drugs reaching the market, raising renewed scientific interest in drug discovery from natural sources, despite of its known challenges. In this survey, a brief outline of historical development is provided together with a comprehensive overview of used approaches and recent developments relevant to plant-derived natural product drug discovery. Associated challenges and major strengths of natural product-based drug discovery are critically discussed. A snapshot of the advanced plant-derived natural products that are currently in actively recruiting clinical trials is also presented. Importantly, the transition of a natural compound from a "screening hit" through a "drug lead" to a "marketed drug" is associated with increasingly challenging demands for compound amount, which often cannot be met by re-isolation from the respective plant sources. In this regard, existing alternatives for resupply are also discussed, including different biotechnology approaches and total organic synthesis.While the intrinsic complexity of natural product-based drug discovery necessitates highly integrated interdisciplinary approaches, the reviewed scientific developments, recent technological advances, and research trends clearly indicate that natural products will be among the most important sources of new drugs also in the future.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1582-1614
    Number of pages33
    JournalBiotechnology Advances
    Volume33
    Issue number8
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 15 Aug 2015

    Austrian Fields of Science 2012

    • 301204 Pharmacognosy

    Keywords

    • Computer modeling
    • Drug discovery
    • Ethnopharmacology
    • Medicine
    • Natural products
    • Organic synthesis
    • Pharmacology
    • Phytochemistry
    • Plant biotechnology
    • Plants

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