Natural Product-Driven Antimicrobial Drug Discovery

Introduction

Natural products (NPs) have been an important source of drug discovery and development due to their novel structures and wide range of pharmacological activities. Especially in the discovery of antibiotics, most antibiotics are derived from NPs and their derivatives, such as penicillin G, amoxicillin, oxytetracycline, and minocycline. NPs have particular advantages over purely synthetic molecules. First, they are evolutionarily “optimized” structurally for specific biological functions, including anti-infection, interaction with other organisms, and receptor/protein binding. Second, NPs have a broader chemical space than typical synthetic small molecule compound libraries, bringing the advantages of scaffold diversity and structural novelty. Third, due to the large number of sp3 carbon atoms and chiral centers, NPs have the unique ability to interact with receptors and targeting selectivity. Therefore, NP-based antimicrobial drug discovery is one of the hot topics in current research. Herein, to showcase the latest research in “Natural Product-Driven Antimicrobial Drug Discovery,” we are launching a special virtual issue on this journal “Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry”.

Keywords

Natural products, antibiotics, antimicrobial activity, scaffold diversity, structural novelty, drug discovery

Sub-topics

• Manuscripts focused on either a NP or a NP scaffold as a starting point/motivation for antimicrobial discovery.


• Isolation of unique classes of NPs with good antimicrobial activity and detailed biochemical/cellular studies.


• Reviews focused on NPs or NP scaffolds and discussing antimicrobial aspects.