Approaches to Target Profiling of Natural Products

R.      Yue; L.      Shan; X.      Yang; W.      Zhang

doi:10.2174/092986712801661068

Abstract

Natural products have long been regarded as excellent sources for drug discovery given their structural diversity and wide variety of biological activities. Accordingly, the identification of the molecular targets of natural products is an important aspect of current drug discovery, as knowledge regarding a compound’s molecular targets will greatly aid drug development and design. In this review, we will explore genomic, proteomic, and computational approaches to the elucidation of these mechanisms and the implications of these approaches for the target profiling of natural products. The recent applications of target profiling of natural products will also be reviewed.

Keywords: Natural products, target profiling, genomics, proteomics, affinity chromatography, molecular docking, pharmacophore, chemobioinformatics, system biological network analysis, mechanism of action.