What Are Natural Products? Definition and Methods in Secondary Metabolite and Plant Extract Research
Natural Product Materials
Natural products are compounds made by living organisms such as plants, microbes, fungi, and marine organisms, and their extracts. At the centre of the research are secondary metabolites, which are not directly required for an organism's growth but are involved in defence, signaling, and adaptation to the environment.
Natural products have a very wide range of structures, from secondary metabolites such as alkaloids, terpenoids, phenolic compounds (flavonoids, tannins, lignans, and others), polyketides, and peptides to macromolecules derived from primary metabolites, such as polysaccharides. They have been studied as an important source for developing drugs and functional ingredients.
Main research topics
- 01Resource exploration and origin confirmation
Taxonomic identification of the organism under study and keeping of voucher specimens
- 02Extraction, isolation, and purification
Comparing extraction efficiency by solvent and conditions, and chromatography-based separation
- 03Structure elucidation
Determining the structure and stereochemistry of new compounds through spectroscopic analysis
- 04Biosynthesis and metabolic engineering
Elucidating biosynthetic pathways of secondary metabolites and microbe-based production
- 05Marine and microbial natural products
Exploring compounds derived from marine organisms, symbiotic microbes, and fungi
- 06Sustainable use of resources
Conservation of biological resources and access and benefit-sharing under the Nagoya Protocol
Overview of methods
Compounds are obtained by solvent extraction, supercritical fluid extraction, and similar methods.
Compounds are separated by column chromatography and HPLC.
Active fractions are narrowed down by following bioassay results.
Structures are determined by NMR, mass spectrometry (MS), and other methods.
Composition is examined by LC-MS- and GC-MS-based metabolite analysis.
- Newman DJ, Cragg GM. Natural products as sources of new drugs over the nearly four decades from 01/1981 to 09/2019. J Nat Prod 2020;83(3):770–803.
- Atanasov AG, Zotchev SB, Dirsch VM, et al. Natural products in drug discovery: advances and opportunities. Nat Rev Drug Discov 2021;20:200–216.
- Convention on Biological Diversity. Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilisation (2010, entered into force 2014).