Natural products as sources of drugs Flashcards
3 main sources of lead compounds
Synthetic world, natural world, virtual world
The natural world consists of
Plant life, micro-organisms, animal life and marine chemistry
The synthetic world consists of
chemical synthesis and combinatorial synthesis
The virtual world consist of
computer aided drug design
Drugs from the synthetic world are mostly which type?
chemotherapeutic agents
Describe the synthetic methods of preparation of chiral drugs
synthesizing enantiomers of drugs using resolution of a racemic mixture, asymmetric synthesis and chiral pool materials
The natural world provides which kind of drugs
clinically and commercially important drugs
What are natural products?
organic compounds isolated from natural sources, aka secondary metabolites
Drugs isolated as products of biological synthesis as available as?
single enantiomers
Opium, yew tree, willow tree and coca bush are lead compounds/sources for which drugs?
opium-morphine, yew tree – taxol (anti-cancer drug), willow tree – salicylic acid (aspirin synthesised from it) and coca bush – cocaine (drug lead for procaine).
What advantage does fungi have?
the ability to produce antibacterial agents
What are secondary metabolites?
Compounds produced by microorganism that aren’t involved in essential life processes and do not provide a function required for growth and life maintenance but are important, not essential to survive. Structural characteristics of secondary metabolites depends on the way in which they are built up
Possible reasons why microorganisms produce secondary metabolites
give survival advantage by antagonism against competition, toxicity to competitors makes them valuable
Main classes of secondary metabolites
specialised amino acids and peptides / Polyketides / Terpenoids and steroids / alkaloids / specialised carbohydrates
Examples of Specialised AA and peptides
b- lactam antibiotics eg. penicillin, cephalosporin
