Current Bioactive Compounds - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2009

Natural products isolated from plant, animal or fermentation have long been the main source for the chemotherapeutic intervention of cancer. However, in the later part of the 20th century, the advances of combinatorial chemistry have taken centerstage in the drug discovery process and natural product synthesis took a temporary backseat for these new chemical processes. Combinatorial techniques have resulted into lar Read More

The phenanthroindolizidine and phenanthroquinolizidine alkaloids, typified by tylophorine and cryptopleurine, are a family of plant-derived small molecules with significant therapeutic potential. The plant extracts have been used in herbal medicine and the isolated compounds have displayed a range of promising therapeutic activity such as antiameobicidal, anti-viral, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer activity. Despite their the Read More

Natural products and small molecules inspired by them are enjoying a resurgence of interest because they intersect biological space effectively and selectively. On account of their unprecedented structural diversity and biological activities oxindole natural products continue to attract the interest of chemists and biologists alike. Quarternary or spirocyclic 3-alkyl(aryl)-3-hydroxy-2-oxindole scaffold is at the core of several natural pr Read More

This review will focus on the ability of the 2-aminoimidazole to occupy a unique subset of chemical space which makes it an ideal pharmacophore for the development of small molecule collections for discovery based research. These observations rely both on the use of 2-aminoimidazoles as building blocks in medicinal chemistry as well as the recent discovery of alkaloids from sponges of the genus Leucetta which exhibit a di Read More

The tumor vasculature is quite an attractive target for anti-cancer/anti-tumor therapy because the blood vessels provide the route for nutrient/waste and oxygen/carbon dioxide exchanges as well as a convenient route for tumor metastatic spread. The complex interplay of the tumor with the local blood vasculature is intriguing. Targeting the vasculature in an effort to control the tumor life cycle is therefore very Read More