Clark A M
Department of Pharmacognosy, School of Pharmacy, University of Mississippi, University 38677, USA.
Pharm Res. 1996 Aug;13(8):1133-44. doi: 10.1023/a:1016091631721.
Natural products have served as a major source of drugs for centuries, and about half of the pharmaceuticals in use today are derived from natural products. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of the continuing central role of natural products in the discovery and development of new pharmaceuticals. In this context, selected examples of important natural product-derived drugs are cited, focusing on some of the most recent introductions to the clinical setting, and a brief overview of some of the important recent developments and remaining challenges in the process of discovering and developing bioactive natural products is provided. Interest in natural products research is strong and can be attributed to several factors, including unmet therapeutic needs, the remarkable diversity of both chemical structures and biological activities of naturally occurring secondary metabolites, the utility of bioactive natural products as biochemical and molecular probes, the development of novel and sensitive techniques to detect biologically active natural products, improved techniques to isolate, purify, and structurally characterize these active constituents, and advances in solving the demand for supply of complex natural products. Opportunities for multidisciplinary research that joins the forces of natural products chemistry, molecular and cellular biology, synthetic and analytical chemistry, biochemistry, and pharmacology to exploit the vast diversity of chemical structures and biological activities of natural products are discussed.
几个世纪以来，天然产物一直是药物的主要来源，目前使用的药物中约有一半源自天然产物。本综述的目的是概述天然产物在新药发现和开发中持续发挥的核心作用。在此背景下，列举了一些重要的天然产物衍生药物实例，重点介绍了一些最近进入临床应用的药物，并简要概述了生物活性天然产物发现和开发过程中一些重要的近期进展以及尚存的挑战。对天然产物研究的兴趣浓厚，这可归因于几个因素，包括未满足的治疗需求、天然存在的次生代谢产物在化学结构和生物活性方面的显著多样性、生物活性天然产物作为生化和分子探针的实用性、检测生物活性天然产物的新颖灵敏技术的发展、分离、纯化和对这些活性成分进行结构表征的改进技术，以及在解决复杂天然产物供应需求方面取得的进展。还讨论了多学科研究的机会，这些研究整合了天然产物化学、分子和细胞生物学、合成与分析化学、生物化学以及药理学等领域的力量，以利用天然产物在化学结构和生物活性方面的巨大多样性。
