Plant natural products: inspiring sources for drugs development.

Abstract

Nature is undoubtedly a great source of metabolites that exhibit a multitude of biological activities. Plant-derived natural products have received considerate attention due to the huge diversity of chemical structures produced by such organism. Some of these natural products were found to possess nutraceutical and/or pharmaceutical properties. Supply of compounds of therapeutic interest is a challenge since low yields are usually achieved in nature besides the seasonal variability of accumulation. Organic synthesis and plant engineering are approaches that can be successfully used to overcome these drawbacks. Organic synthesis is a powerful tool for structurally modifying and/or obtaining plant-derived carbon backbones aiming either the scale up of production or function improvements. Also, the development of molecular biology techniques has enable plant genetic engineering to further increase the supply of biopharmaceutical proteins/peptides and high-value metabolites. This Journal issue provides the state-of-art of research focused on plant natural products as pharma(nutra)ceuticals in the context of the following subtopics: a) plant natural products as lead compounds for drug design; b) total synthesis of natural products; c) plant tissue culture as biofactory of interesting metabolites and d) plant engineering for improving compounds production.