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Natural products in drug discovery: advances and opportunities

Natural products in drug discovery: advances and opportunities
Natural products in drug discovery: advances and opportunities
Natural products and their structural analogues have historically made a major contribution to pharmacotherapy, especially for cancer and infectious diseases. Nevertheless, natural products also present challenges for drug discovery, such as technical barriers for screening, isolation, characterization and optimization, which contributed to a decline in their pursuit by the pharmaceutical industry from the 1990s onwards. In recent years, several technological and scientific developments — including improved analytical tools, genome mining and engineering strategies, and microbial culturing advances — are addressing such challenges and opening up new opportunities. Consequently, interest in natural products as drug leads is being revitalized, particularly for tackling antimicrobial resistance. Here, we summarize recent technological developments that are enabling natural product-based drug discovery, highlight selected applications and discuss key opportunities.
1474-1776
200–216
Atanasov, Atanas G.
92867038-102f-4422-ba15-3035f36a94f9
Supuran, Claudiu T.
66fd18ca-00c1-4f47-9bad-4752b4abe202
Zotchev, Sergey B.
9d2db201-8ab5-4a6d-ab57-efc4b3febf94
Dirsch, Verena M.
e326e4b8-fec6-49b8-b810-79972a807358
Godfrey, Keith
0931701e-fe2c-44b5-8f0d-ec5c7477a6fd
International Natural Product Sciences Taskforce
Atanasov, Atanas G.
92867038-102f-4422-ba15-3035f36a94f9
Supuran, Claudiu T.
66fd18ca-00c1-4f47-9bad-4752b4abe202
Zotchev, Sergey B.
9d2db201-8ab5-4a6d-ab57-efc4b3febf94
Dirsch, Verena M.
e326e4b8-fec6-49b8-b810-79972a807358
Godfrey, Keith
0931701e-fe2c-44b5-8f0d-ec5c7477a6fd

International Natural Product Sciences Taskforce (2021) Natural products in drug discovery: advances and opportunities. Nature Reviews. Drug Discovery, 20 (3), 200–216. (doi:10.1038/s41573-020-00114-z).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Natural products and their structural analogues have historically made a major contribution to pharmacotherapy, especially for cancer and infectious diseases. Nevertheless, natural products also present challenges for drug discovery, such as technical barriers for screening, isolation, characterization and optimization, which contributed to a decline in their pursuit by the pharmaceutical industry from the 1990s onwards. In recent years, several technological and scientific developments — including improved analytical tools, genome mining and engineering strategies, and microbial culturing advances — are addressing such challenges and opening up new opportunities. Consequently, interest in natural products as drug leads is being revitalized, particularly for tackling antimicrobial resistance. Here, we summarize recent technological developments that are enabling natural product-based drug discovery, highlight selected applications and discuss key opportunities.

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Accepted/In Press date: 9 December 2020
e-pub ahead of print date: 28 January 2021
Published date: March 2021
Additional Information: Funding Information: A.G.A. is executive administrator of the International Natural Product Sciences Taskforce (INPST) and Digital Health and Patient Safety Platform (DHPSP). M. Banach has served on the speakers’ bureau of Abbott/Mylan, Abbott Vascular, Actavis, Akcea, Amgen, Biofarm, KRKA, MSD, Novo-Nordisk, Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis, Servier and Valeant, has served as a consultant to Abbott Vascular, Akcea, Amgen, Daichii Sankyo, Esperion, Freia Pharmaceuticals, Lilly, MSD, Novartis, Polfarmex, Resverlogix, Sanofi-Aventis, and has received grants from Amgen, Mylan, Sanofi and Valeant. R.B. collaborates with Bayer Consumer Health and Dr Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG, and is scientific advisory committee member of PuraPharm International (HK) Limited and ISURA. G.K.B. is a board member of Bionorica SE. M. Daglia has received consultancy honoraria from Pfizer Italia and Mylan for training courses for chemists, and is a member of the INPST board of directors. A.T.D.-K. is a member of the Scientific and Medical Advisory Board of Evgen Pharma plc. I.E.O. is Dean of Faculty of Pharmacy, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey, member of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Experts Group in European Pharmacopeia, and principal member of Turkish Academy of Sciences (TUBA). B.L.F. is a member of the INPST Board of Directors and has received research funding from Dr Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG. K.M.G. has received reimbursement for speaking at conferences sponsored by companies selling nutritional products and is part of an academic consortium that has received research funding from Abbott Nutrition, Nestec and Danone. C.W.G. is chairman of the scientific advisory board of Cyxone AB, SE. M.H.’s research group has received charitable donations from Dr Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG and recently completed a research project sponsored by Pukka Herbs, UK. A.L. is a member of the board of directors of Kaisa Health. M.J.S.M. is president of Kaiviti Consulting and consults for Gnosis by LeSaffre. F.N. is cofounder and shareholder of OncoNox and Aura Biopharm. G.P. is on the board of Neurotez and Neurotrope. M.R. serves as an adviser for the Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences. G.L.R. is a member of the board of directors of INPST. N.T.T. is Founder and CEO of NTZ Lab Ltd and advisory board member of INPST. M.W. collaborates with Finzelberg GmbH and Schwabe GmbH. J.L.W. collaborates with Nestlé and Firmenich. M.A.P. is CEO and owner of Bionorica SE. J.H. is an employee of and holds shares in UCB Pharma Ltd. M.M. is Founder and Chairman of Sami–Sabinsa Group of Companies. D.S.B. is an employee of Janssen R&D. M. Bodkin is an employee of Evotec (UK) Ltd. Funding Information: This paper is affectionately dedicated in memory of Dr Mariola Macías (1984–2020) M.D., Ph.D. in Immunology, Emergency Physician at Hospital Punta Europa, Algeciras (Cadiz), Spain and active member of a research team working against SARS-CoV-2. An excellent professional and a better person. Her humanity, kindness, special and unmistakable smile, generosity, dedication and professionalism will never be forgotten. The authors are grateful to P. Kirkpatrick for his editorial contribution, which resulted in a greatly improved manuscript. A.G.A. acknowledges support from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) project P25971-B23 (‘Improved cholesterol efflux by natural products’). R.B. acknowledges support by a grant from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) P27505. V.B. acknowledges support by a grant from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) P27682-B30. N.B. is recipient of an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship. A.C. and E.I. thank the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Spain (Project AGL2017-89417-R) for support. M. Diederich is supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) (grant number 019R1A2C1009231), by a grant from the MEST of Korea for Tumour Microenvironment Global Core Research Center (GCRC) (grant number NRF-2011-0030001), by the Creative-Pioneering Researchers Program through Seoul National University (Funding number: 370C-20160062), by the Brain Korea 21 (BK21) PLUS programme, by the ‘Recherche Cancer et Sang’ foundation, by the ‘Recherches Scientifiques Luxembourg’ association, by the ‘Een Häerz fir kriibskrank Kanner’ association, by the Action LIONS ‘Vaincre le Cancer’ association and by Télévie Luxembourg. The research work of A.T.D.-K. is funded by Cancer Research UK (C20953/A18644), the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/L01923X/1), Reata Pharmaceuticals, and Tenovus Scotland (T17/T14). B.L.F. acknowledges BMBF (TUNGER 036/FUCOFOOD) and AIF (AGEsense) for supporting his research. M.I.G. acknowledges financial support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, project PlantaSYST (SGA No 739582 under FPA No. 664620) and the BG05M2OP001-1.003-001-C01 project, financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the ‘Science and Education for Smart Growth’ Operational Programme. K.M.G. is supported by the UK Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12011/4), the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR Senior Investigator (NF-SI-0515-10042) and the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre), the European Union (Erasmus+ Capacity-Building ENeA SEA Project and Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013), projects EarlyNutrition and ODIN (grant agreements 289346 and 613977), the US National Institute On Ageing of the National Institutes of Health (award no. U24AG047867) and the UK ESRC and BBSRC (award no. ES/M00919X/1). Research in the laboratory of C.W.G. is supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) through project P32109 and a NATVANTAGE grant 2019 by the Wilhelm Doerenkamp-Stiftung. A.K. acknowledges support by national funds through FCT-Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal within the scope of UIDB/04423/2020 and UIDP/04423/2020. A.L. acknowledges HKBU SDF16-0603-P02 for supporting this research. F.A.M. acknowledges the support by Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Spain (project AGL2017-88083-R). A.M. acknowledges the support by a grant of the Romanian Ministry of Research and Innovation, CNCS – UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P1-1.1-PD-2016-1900 – ‘PhytoSal’, within PNCDI III. G.P. acknowledges the support by NIH G12-MD007591, Kleberg Foundation and NIH R01-AG066749. M.R. acknowledges support by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Schweiz-erischer Nationalfonds, SNF), and by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union. J.M.R. acknowledges the support from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF: P24587), the Natvantage grant 2018 and the University of Vienna, Austria. G.L.R. acknowledges the group of Cellular and Molecular Nutrition (BJ-Lab) at the Institute of Food Sciences, National Research Council, Avellino, Italy. A.S.S. acknowledges the support by UIDB/00211/2020 with funding from FCT/MCTES through national funds. D.S. acknowledges the support by FWF S10711. D.S. is an Ingeborg Hochmair Professor at the University of Innsbruck. K.S.W. is supported by the National Centre for Research and Development (4/POLTUR-1/2016) and the National Science Centre (2017/27/B/NZ4/00917) and Medical University of Lublin, Poland. E.S.S. thanks Universidad Central de Chile, through Dirección de Investigación y Postgrado, for supporting this research. H. Stuppner acknowledges support by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union (RISE, 691158). A.S. was granted by Instituto de Salud Carlos III, CIBEROBN (CB12/03/30038) and EU-COST Action (CA16112). M.W. acknowledges the support by DFG, BMBF, EU, CSC, DAAD, AvH and Land Baden Württemberg. J.L.W. is grateful to the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) for supporting its natural product metabolomics projects (grants nos. 310030E-164289, 31003A_163424 and 316030_164095). S.B.Z. acknowledges the support by University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria. M.H. acknowledges an EPSRC CASE Award (with Pukka Herbs Ltd, UK as industrial partner). I.B.-N. acknowledges the support of Competitivity Operational Program, 2014–2020, entitled ‘Clinical and economical impact of personalized targeted anti-microRNA therapies in reconverting lung cancer chemoresistance’ — CANTEMIR, No. 35/01.09.2016, MySMIS 103375; project PNCDI III 2015-2020 entitled ‘Increasing the performance of scientific research and technology transfer in translational medicine through the formation of a new generation of young researchers’ — ECHITAS, no. 29PFE/18.10.2018. This work was also funded by the Italian Ministry for University and Research (MIUR), grant PRIN: rot. 2017XYBP2R (to C.T.S). Publisher Copyright: © 2021, Springer Nature Limited.

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 445759
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/445759
ISSN: 1474-1776
PURE UUID: 04d47fed-2da7-467c-80da-0a3160c8085d
ORCID for Keith Godfrey: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-4643-0618

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Date deposited: 07 Jan 2021 17:32
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 06:11

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Contributors

Author: Atanas G. Atanasov
Author: Claudiu T. Supuran
Author: Sergey B. Zotchev
Author: Verena M. Dirsch
Author: Keith Godfrey ORCID iD
Corporate Author: International Natural Product Sciences Taskforce

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