{"title":"The bisintercalator family of nonribosomal peptides: structural diversity and biosynthetic mechanism.","authors":"Xinjie Shi","doi":"10.1039/d5np00003c","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1039/d5np00003c","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Covering: up to February 2025Among the numerous bioactive microbial natural products, a subset of nonribosomal peptides derived from actinobacteria is characterized by their <i>C</i><sub>2</sub>-symmetric macrocyclic scaffolds and referred to as bisintercalators due to their ability to bisintercalate into DNA molecules. This family of compounds exhibits excellent antimicrobial, antitumor and antiviral properties, making them promising candidates for drug development. New members of the bisintercalator family continue to be discovered, and significant advancement has been made in understanding their biosynthesis over the past two decades. These efforts have established the general biosynthetic pathways of bisintercalators, although some chemically intriguing enzymatic transformations remain to be fully elucidated. This review summarizes the sources and chemical structures of known bisintercalators, briefly discussing their bioactivities, and then highlights the biochemical reactions involved in assembling their sophisticated macrocyclic scaffolds.</p>","PeriodicalId":94,"journal":{"name":"Natural Product Reports","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143951596","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"40 Years of Natural Product Reports","authors":"","doi":"10.1039/D5NP90012C","DOIUrl":"10.1039/D5NP90012C","url":null,"abstract":"<p >A graphical abstract is available for this content</p>","PeriodicalId":94,"journal":{"name":"Natural Product Reports","volume":" 4","pages":" 647-648"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143810337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Illuminating the dark space of bioactive peptides with mass spectrometry.","authors":"Nicole C Parsley, Leslie M Hicks","doi":"10.1039/d4np00057a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1039/d4np00057a","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Natural product peptides embody a suite of inherent bioactivities and serve as a template to inspire new chemistries and molecular scaffolds in drug discovery and agrotechnology. Mapping the vast and diverse bioactive peptidome, however, is largely obfuscated by unpredictable molecular transformations in both non-ribosomal sequences and highly post-translationally modified ribosomal protein products. Mass spectrometry is a powerful analytical technique with modern instrumentation achieving unprecedented resolving power, rapid and sensitive gas-phase separations, and versatile multistage fragmentation techniques. As such, mass spectrometry can be (1) leveraged to characterize traditionally difficult-to-sequence natural product peptide modifications <i>via</i> enhanced gas-phase technologies and (2) coupled with complementary 'Omics' approaches to predict peptide structure through transcripts, motifs, biosynthetic pathways, and the biomolecular machinery involved in peptide biogenesis. Herein, the challenges of and recent innovations in mass spectrometry towards the discovery and characterization of natural product bioactive peptides are profiled.</p>","PeriodicalId":94,"journal":{"name":"Natural Product Reports","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143603231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Intramolecular cycloaddition of nitrones in total synthesis of natural products.","authors":"Satoshi Yokoshima","doi":"10.1039/d4np00062e","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1039/d4np00062e","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Covering 2015 to 2024Cycloaddition of nitrones with alkenes forms isoxazolidines, which are five-membered heterocycles containing nitrogen and oxygen atoms. This transformation functionalizes alkenes by forming C-C and C-O bonds. The N-O bond in the resultant isoxazolidines is easily cleaved. Additionally, when the cycloaddition is carried out intramolecularly, the regioselectivity of the reaction is influenced by the tether connecting the nitrone and alkene and can differ from the selectivity governed by frontier molecular orbital interaction. These features make the intramolecular cycloaddition of nitrones attractive in the synthesis of complex molecules. In this review, we discuss the intramolecular cycloaddition of nitrones used in the total synthesis of natural products.</p>","PeriodicalId":94,"journal":{"name":"Natural Product Reports","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143584033","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Malcolm Z. Y. Choo , Julian A. T. Chua , Sean X. Y. Lee , Yuet Ang , W. S. Fred Wong , Christina L. L. Chai
{"title":"Privileged natural product compound classes for anti-inflammatory drug development","authors":"Malcolm Z. Y. Choo , Julian A. T. Chua , Sean X. Y. Lee , Yuet Ang , W. S. Fred Wong , Christina L. L. Chai","doi":"10.1039/d4np00066h","DOIUrl":"10.1039/d4np00066h","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Covering: up to early 2025</div></div><div><div>Privileged compound classes of anti-inflammatory natural products are those where there are many reported members that possess anti-inflammatory properties. The identification of these classes is of particular relevance to drug discovery, as they could serve as valuable starting points in developing effective and safe anti-inflammatory agents. The privileged compound classes of natural products include the polyphenols, coumarins, labdane diterpenoids, sesquiterpene lactones, isoquinoline and indole alkaloids, each offering a variety of molecular scaffolds and functional groups that enable diverse interactions with biological targets. From a medicinal chemistry point of view, natural products are both a boon and a bane. The multi-targeting nature of natural products is a boon in the treatment of multi-factorial diseases such as inflammation, but promiscuity, poor potency and pharmacokinetic properties are significant hurdles that must be addressed to ensure these compounds can be effectively used as therapeutics. In addition, there are continued controversies regarding the efficacies of some of these natural products that will continue to polarise their use. In this review, examples of natural products of six privileged compound classes will be discussed for their potential use and possible further development as anti-inflammatory drugs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":94,"journal":{"name":"Natural Product Reports","volume":"42 5","pages":"Pages 856-875"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143595763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Molecular insights fast-tracked: AI in biosynthetic pathway research","authors":"Lijuan Liao , Mengjun Xie , Xiaoshan Zheng , Zhao Zhou , Zixin Deng , Jiangtao Gao","doi":"10.1039/d4np00003j","DOIUrl":"10.1039/d4np00003j","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Covering: 2000 to 2025</div></div><div><div>This review explores the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in addressing challenges and accelerating molecular insights in biosynthetic pathway research, which is crucial for developing bioactive natural products with applications in pharmacology, agriculture, and biotechnology. It provides an overview of various AI techniques relevant to this research field, including machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), natural language processing, network analysis, and data mining. AI-powered applications across three main areas, namely, pathway discovery and mining, pathway design, and pathway optimization, are discussed, and the benefits and challenges of integrating omics data and AI for enhanced pathway research are also elucidated. This review also addresses the current limitations, future directions, and the importance of synergy between AI and experimental approaches in unlocking rapid advancements in biosynthetic pathway research. The review concludes with an evaluation of AI's current capabilities and future outlook, emphasizing the transformative impact of AI on biosynthetic pathway research and the potential for new opportunities in the discovery and optimization of bioactive natural products.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":94,"journal":{"name":"Natural Product Reports","volume":"42 5","pages":"Pages 911-936"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143699074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Recent advances in the application of the isoxazoline route to aldols in the synthesis of natural products","authors":"Pavel Yu. Ushakov , Alexey Yu. Sukhorukov","doi":"10.1039/d4np00069b","DOIUrl":"10.1039/d4np00069b","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Covering: 2000 to 2024</div></div><div><div>The cycloaddition of nitrile oxides with olefins (NOC), followed by reductive cleavage of the resulting isoxazolines, has been widely recognised as a convenient and powerful synthetic strategy for constructing the aldol motif in natural product synthesis. Different modes of NOC (intermolecular, fused and bridged intramolecular) enable the synthesis of diverse isoxazoline products, which can be converted into highly substituted cyclic and acyclic aldol frameworks. This review examines the advances in this field over the past 25 years. More than 50 total syntheses are discussed, encompassing various classes of natural compounds, including macrolides, alkaloids, terpenoids, steroids, pseudosugars, sulfolipids and some others. Moreover, the basic aspects of this methodology are outlined, including methods for the generation of nitrile oxides and isoxazoline ring cleavage, as well as stereochemical models for intramolecular nitrile oxide cycloaddition.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":94,"journal":{"name":"Natural Product Reports","volume":"42 5","pages":"Pages 876-910"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143661657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ying Shi , Yinzheng Xia , Weijiang Gao , Jingxue Wang , Bing Shi , Huan Wang
{"title":"Enzymatic crosslinking of histidine side chains in peptide natural products","authors":"Ying Shi , Yinzheng Xia , Weijiang Gao , Jingxue Wang , Bing Shi , Huan Wang","doi":"10.1039/d5np00001g","DOIUrl":"10.1039/d5np00001g","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Covering: 2019 to 2024</div></div><div><div>Peptide macrocyclization stands as the pivotal step in the biosynthesis journey of bioactive cyclic peptide natural products, spanning both ribosomal and non-ribosomal origins. Beyond the enzymatic N- to C-terminus macrocyclization, natural cyclic peptides frequently display side chain-to-side chain crosslinks, which markedly bolster their stability and biological potency. Traditionally, histidine, with its imidazole side chain, has been regarded as chemically unreactive, leading to relatively sparse reports of histidine-containing crosslinks in cyclic peptide natural products. However, recent advancements in research have illuminated a novel perspective on the role of histidine (His) residues in peptide macrocyclization, revealing that His participation in this process is far more ubiquitous than previously envisioned. This highlight underscores the significance of His-containing crosslinks in natural cyclic peptides and delves into the enzymatic mechanisms underlying their formation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":94,"journal":{"name":"Natural Product Reports","volume":"42 5","pages":"Pages 763-773"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143536234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mohamed A. Tammam , Florbela Pereira , Elizabeth Skellam , Stefan Bidula , A. Ganesan , Amr El-Demerdash
{"title":"The cytochalasans: potent fungal natural products with application from bench to bedside†","authors":"Mohamed A. Tammam , Florbela Pereira , Elizabeth Skellam , Stefan Bidula , A. Ganesan , Amr El-Demerdash","doi":"10.1039/d4np00076e","DOIUrl":"10.1039/d4np00076e","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Covering: 2000–2023</div></div><div><div>Cytochalasans are a fascinating class of natural products that possess an intricate chemical structure with a diverse range of biological activities. They are known for their complex chemical architectures and are often isolated from various fungi. These compounds have attracted attention due to their potential pharmacological properties, including antimicrobial, antiviral, and anticancer effects. For decades, researchers have studied these molecules to better understand their mechanisms of action and to explore their potential applications in medicine and other fields. This review article aims to shed light over the period 2000–2023 on the structural diversities of fungal derived cytochalasans, insights into their biosynthetic origins, pharmacokinetics and their promising therapeutic potential in drug discovery and development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":94,"journal":{"name":"Natural Product Reports","volume":"42 5","pages":"Pages 788-841"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143481752","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Antarctic bacterial natural products: from genomic insights to drug discovery†","authors":"William Medeiros , Stanislava Kralova , Valéria Oliveira , Nadine Ziemert , Ludek Sehnal","doi":"10.1039/d4np00045e","DOIUrl":"10.1039/d4np00045e","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Covering: up to the end of 2024</div></div><div><div>Microbial life dominates the extreme continent Antarctica, playing a pivotal role in ecosystem functioning and serving as a reservoir of specialized metabolites known as natural products (NPs). NPs not only contribute to microbial adaptation to harsh conditions but also modulate microbial community structure. Long-term isolation and environmental pressures have shaped the genomes of Antarctic bacteria, suggesting that they also encode unique NPs. Since NPs are also an important source of drugs, we argue that investigating Antarctic bacterial NPs is essential not only for understanding their ecological role and evolution, but also for discovering new chemical structures, biosynthetic mechanisms, and potential new drugs. Yet, despite advances in omics technologies and increased scientific activities in Antarctica, relatively few new bacterial NPs have been discovered. The lack of systematic research activities focused on the exploration of Antarctic bacteria and their NPs constitutes a big problem considering the climate change issue, to which ecosystems in polar regions are the most sensitive areas on the Earth. Here, we highlight the currently available data on Antarctic bacteria, their biosynthetic potential, and the successful NP discoveries, while addressing the challenges in NP research and advocating for systematic, collaborative efforts aligned with the Antarctic Treaty System and the Antarctic Conservation Biogeographic Regions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":94,"journal":{"name":"Natural Product Reports","volume":"42 5","pages":"Pages 774-787"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143490174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}