Harvey Alan L
Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy & Biomedical Sciences, University of Strathclyde, 27 Taylor Street, Glasgow G4 0NR, UK.
Drug Discov Today. 2008 Oct;13(19-20):894-901. doi: 10.1016/j.drudis.2008.07.004. Epub 2008 Aug 22.
Natural products have been the single most productive source of leads for the development of drugs. Over a 100 new products are in clinical development, particularly as anti-cancer agents and anti-infectives. Application of molecular biological techniques is increasing the availability of novel compounds that can be conveniently produced in bacteria or yeasts, and combinatorial chemistry approaches are being based on natural product scaffolds to create screening libraries that closely resemble drug-like compounds. Various screening approaches are being developed to improve the ease with which natural products can be used in drug discovery campaigns, and data mining and virtual screening techniques are also being applied to databases of natural products. It is hoped that the more efficient and effective application of natural products will improve the drug discovery process.
天然产物一直是药物开发中最具成效的先导化合物来源。有100多种新产品正处于临床开发阶段，尤其是作为抗癌药物和抗感染药物。分子生物学技术的应用增加了可在细菌或酵母中方便生产的新型化合物的可得性，并且组合化学方法正基于天然产物支架来创建与类药物化合物非常相似的筛选文库。正在开发各种筛选方法以提高天然产物在药物发现活动中的易用性，数据挖掘和虚拟筛选技术也正应用于天然产物数据库。人们希望更高效且有效地应用天然产物将改善药物发现过程。
