Activity-based protein profiling for natural product target discovery

Top Curr Chem. 2012:324:43-84. doi: 10.1007/128_2011_289.

Abstract

Natural products represent an important treasure box of biologically active molecules, from which many drug candidates have been sourced. The identification of the target proteins addressed by these natural products is a foremost goal for which new techniques are required. Activity-based protein profiling (ABPP), exploiting protein-reactive functional groups present in many natural products, offers unseen opportunities in this respect. This review article describes the current status of this field. Many examples are given for the annotation of biological target proteins of natural products containing epoxides, lactones, lactams, Michael acceptors, and other electrophilic groups. In addition, the development of probe molecules identified from biomimetic natural product libraries is discussed.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Biological Products / chemistry*
  • Drug Design*
  • Drug Discovery / methods*
  • Humans
  • Pharmaceutical Preparations / chemical synthesis*
  • Pharmaceutical Preparations / chemistry
  • Protein Array Analysis*
  • Proteins / chemistry*
  • Proteome / analysis*

Substances

  • Biological Products
  • Pharmaceutical Preparations
  • Proteins
  • Proteome