Natural Products in Chemical Biology

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PLANT-DERIVED NATURAL PRODUCTS RESEARCH IN DRUG DISCOVERY

KUO-HSIUNG LEE, HIDEJI ITOKAWA, TOSHIYUKI AKIYAMA, AND SUSAN L. MORRIS-NATSCHKE

Natural Products Research Laboratories, School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Numerous important bioactive compounds have been, and continue to be, isolated worldwide from natural sources. These compounds include both primary and secondary metabolites isolated mainly from plants, as well as from the animal and mineral kingdoms. The recent development of new bioassay methods has facilitated progress in the BDFI (bioactivity-directed fractionation and isolation) of many useful bioactive compounds from natural sources (1). These active principles could be developed or additionally modified to enhance the biologic profiles as clinical trials candidates. Many natural pure compounds have become medicines, dietary supplements, and other useful commercial products. This chapter, current as of 2008, summarizes research on many different useful compounds isolated or developed from plants with an emphasis on those discovered recently by the laboratories of the authors as antitumor and anti-HIV clinical trial candidates.

From ancient times, many crude herbs have been used as remedies for various diseases. In Asia, these therapies include traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), Japanese–Chinese medicine (Kampo), Korean–Chinese medicine, Jamu (Indonesia), and Ayurvetic medicine (India). In Europe, phytotherapy and homeopathy ...