Natural Products Branch, Developmental Therapeutics Program, Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis, Frederick National Laboratory , P.O. Box B, Frederick, Maryland 21702, United States.
J Nat Prod. 2014 Mar 28;77(3):703-23. doi: 10.1021/np5000796. Epub 2014 Feb 5.
There is mounting urgency to find new drugs for the treatment of serious infectious diseases and cancer that are rapidly developing resistance to previously effective drugs. One approach to addressing this need is through drug repurposing, which refers to the discovery of new useful activities for "old" clinically used drugs through screening them against relevant disease targets. A large number of potential drug that, for various reasons, have failed to advance to clinical and commercial use can be added to the candidates available for such purposes. The application of new techniques and methodology developed through the impressive progress made in multidisciplinary, natural product-related research in recent years should aid substantially in expediting the discovery and development process. This review briefly outlines some of these developments as applied to a number of selected natural product examples, which may also include advances in chemical synthesis of derivatives with extended biological activities.
对于迅速产生抗药性的严重传染病和癌症，人们迫切需要寻找新的治疗药物。解决这一需求的一种方法是重新利用药物，即通过针对相关疾病靶点对“老”临床用药进行筛选，发现其新的有用活性。由于各种原因未能进入临床和商业应用的大量潜在药物，可以作为候选药物加入到这类药物中。近年来，多学科、天然产物相关研究取得了令人瞩目的进展，其中开发的新技术和方法应该可以大大加快发现和开发过程。本文简要概述了这些进展在一些选定的天然产物实例中的应用，其中还可能包括具有扩展生物活性的衍生物的化学合成方面的进展。
