Multidisciplinary Approaches to Bioactive Natural Products: From Source to Application
A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Natural Products Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2026 | Viewed by 26
Special Issue Editors
Interests: natural products; phytochemistry; structure elucidation; biological activities
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: total synthesis of natural products; phytochemistry; discovery of new metabolites; biological activities; structure–activity relationships
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Natural products are vital sources of inspiration for new drug research and development, and they also play an increasingly prominent role in multidisciplinary fields like the food industry. Structurally, natural products boast diverse properties in their structural skeletons and stereochemistry, featuring a class of dominant structures shaped by long-term natural evolution—these structures have attracted tremendous research efforts due to their multi-target coupling ability and lower toxicity/side effects compared to synthetic drugs. Statistically, over 62% of approved small-molecule drugs over the past four decades or so have been derived from natural products or their derivatives. Beyond pharmaceutical applications, recent years have witnessed significant progress in the extractive production of natural products in the food industry (especially from various food byproducts) as well as in their separation and purification techniques. Comprising components from plants, animals, insects, and marine organisms—including proteins, polypeptides, amino acids, enzymes, fats, oils, monosaccharides, vitamins, alkaloids, volatile oils, flavones, organic acids, terpenoids, antibiotics, and other natural chemical compositions—natural products have emerged as a key source of active compounds (i.e., substances with beneficial effects on human health, such as protection against foodborne pathogens). This makes the extraction of natural products particularly crucial in multidisciplinary studies.
Against this backdrop, the purpose of this Special Issue of Molecules is twofold: First, it aims to invite researchers in natural medicinal chemistry to present original research on the isolation, structural elucidation, biosynthesis, and pharmacological investigation of new metabolites from plants and microorganisms; the discovery of new bioactivities of known natural products; and the exploration of structure–activity relationships (SAR) of natural products (review articles on bioactive metabolites from plants and microorganisms are also welcome). Second, it aims to collect recent advances in the extraction (covering conventional, emerging, and innovative methodologies) and analysis of natural products, including studies on their sources, properties, and newly developed methods to optimize compound extraction.
Dr. Zhenxing Zou
Dr. Haibo Tan
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- natural products
- secondary metabolites
- isolation and identification of natural products
- structure–activity relationship
- biological
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