Natural Product Reports最新文献

Covering: 2013 to 2024

Cycloaddition reactions, which efficiently construct polycyclic ring systems and stereocenters, are powerful tools in the total synthesis of natural products. Given the significant progress and numerous elegant applications of [5 + 2] cycloaddition reactions over the past decade, this review systematically summarizes the advances in three major types of [5 + 2] cycloaddition reactions in natural product synthesis from 2013 to 2024. The advantages of [5 + 2] cycloadditions in constructing complex natural product frameworks are illustrated through comparisons with alternative strategies for the same targets. Additionally, trends and future prospects for [5 + 2] cycloadditions are discussed, offering valuable insights for further research and broader applications.

Covering: up to 2025.Non-ribosomal peptide synthetases and polyketide synthases are modular biosynthetic systems that produce structurally diverse and pharmacologically potent natural products, including antibiotics, immunosuppressants, and anticancer agents. Their programmable architecture has long inspired efforts in biosynthetic re-engineering. This review highlights recent advances that are transforming non-ribosomal peptide synthetase and polyketide synthase systems into versatile platforms for rational design. We discuss progress in genome mining, high-throughput screening, and dereplication, alongside emerging tools from synthetic biology and computational modeling. Particular focus is given to structure-based approaches-such as homology modeling, molecular docking, and molecular dynamics simulations-as well as deep learning strategies for enzyme prediction and design. Rather than replacing classical techniques, these computational methods now complement and extend them, enabling accelerating the discovery and assembly of tailor-made natural product analogs.

Covering up to 2024Drug resistance is a serious and growing problem, and new small molecules are needed for a wide variety of clinical and agricultural applications. Natural products, encoded by biosynthetic gene clusters, have consistently been a source of chemical diversity for finely tuned interactions with a range of molecular targets of interest. However, many gene clusters are not transcriptionally active, making heterologous expression in a different host strain a useful tool to access bioactive small molecules. Burkholderia spp. bacteria hold promise as heterologous hosts because of their intrinsic natural product capabilities. In this review, we summarize natural products successfully isolated from Burkholderia spp. heterologous hosts up until 2024. We then compare the hosts that have been tested and discuss ongoing development efforts to improve access to new natural products in titers sufficient for drug development and industrial applications.

Covering: 2010 to December 2024

Traditional Chinese medicine is an ancient knowledge base of therapeutic plants and preparations. Today, the isolation of bioactive natural products from traditional Chinese medicine is a valuable tool to identify new scaffolds for drug discovery. One such scaffold, the spiroketal moiety, is widespread in bioactive natural products, often crucial to the bioactivity of the compound. The convergent evolution of the spiroketal moiety in natural products arising from diverse phylogenetic and biosynthetic origins is a hallmark of the biological importance of this moiety. This review aims to highlight the diverse biosynthetic origins and ensuant structural diversity of spiroketal natural products isolated from traditional Chinese medicine, along with their potent and wide array of biological activities, and synthetic approaches to access these natural products to date.

Cyanobacteria are prolific producers of biologically active compounds that are important in influencing ecology, behavior of interacting organisms, and as leads in drug discovery efforts. Here we discuss the challenges faced by all natural product researchers, especially those that focus on cyanobacteria, and then describe progress that has been made in these areas. We also propose some solutions, paths forward, and thoughts for consideration on these challenges.