Natural Products as Leads

Since ancient times, NPs have been a significant source for the treatment of diseases and illnesses. Analysis of NPs over the past 30 years revealed that approximately 40% of the developed therapeutics drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were NPs, NP derivatives, or synthetic mimetics related to NPs. Investigation of structural differences between NPs, drug substances and other chemicals, found that NPs interrogate a differentand wider chemical space compared with synthetic derivatives . Furthermore, it has been showed that 83% of core ring scaffolds present in NPs were absent from commercially available molecules and screening libraries.

We are involved in using well known NPs as building blocks for the obtainment of new pharmacologically active compounds (mainly as anticancer or anti-neurodegenerative compounds)1 or useful probes for the elucidation od important biological mechanisms.2 At the same time we are interested in developing convenient synthesis of interesting Natural Products3,4 and their analogs.5

References
[1] D. Passarella et al. ACS Med. Chem.Lett.2017, 8, 953–957 DOI:10.1021/acsmedchemlett.7b00262
[2] J. Marangon, D. Passarella, G. Cappelletti, S. Ricagno Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications2016, 479, 48-53
[3] E. Bonandi, D. Perdicchia, D. Passarella et al. Molecules2020, 25, 1057 doi. org/10.3390/molecules25051057
[4] P. Marzullo, D. Passarella et al. Journal of Natural Products (2020), 83, 2894-2901 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.0c00436
[5] S. Pieraccini, M. Sironi, D. Passarella et al. Eur.J.Org.Chem. 2016, 2029-2036.