Discovery of structurally diverse and bioactive compounds from plant resources in China

• Published in: Acta pharmacologica Sinica 2012-09, Vol.33 (9), p.1147-1158
• Main Authors: Yang, Sheng-ping, Yue, Jian-min
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; China; Drug Design; Drug Discovery - methods; Drugs, Chinese Herbal - chemistry; Drugs, Chinese Herbal - isolation & purification; Drugs, Chinese Herbal - pharmacology; Humans; Immunology; Internal Medicine; Medical Microbiology; Medicine, Chinese Traditional; Pharmacology/Toxicology; Plants, Medicinal - chemistry; Review; Structure-Activity Relationship; Vaccine; 中国; 传统中药; 多样化; 植物资源; 生物学基础; 生物活性化合物; 相关化合物; 资源结构
• ISSN: 1671-4083; 1745-7254
• DOI: 10.1038/aps.2012.105

This review describes the major discoveries of structurally diverse and/or biologically significant compounds from plant resources in China, mainly from the traditional Chinese medicines （TCMs） since the establishment of our research group in 1999. In the past decade, a large array of biologically significant and novel structures has been identified from plant resources （or TCM） in our laboratory The structural modification of several biologically important compounds led to more than 400 derivatives, some of which exhibited significantly improved activities and provided opportunities to elucidate the structure-activity relationship of the related compound class. These findings are important for drug discovery and help us understand the biological basis for the traditional applications of these plants in TCM.