oa Editorial [Hot Topic: Natural Products Triggering Biological Targets (Guest Editor: Francesco Epifano)]

In the last years natural products have been re-discovered as valuable and effective pharmacological agents. In particular they were shown to exert positive effects in the therapy of acute and chronic diseases, like cancer and microbial syndromes, for which the use of chemotherapeutics or antibiotics failed due to increasing resistance. To this concern, many examples of natural products were reported in the recent and current literature. The aim of this special issue is to collect review articles from several research groups to get further insights in the up to date knowledge in the field of novel agents obtained from natural kingdom triggering specific valuable biological targets. This could be of great help in discovering the underlying mechanism of action of the therapeutic effects of pharmacologically active natural compounds. Eight groups answered to my proposal of contributing to this special issue and submitted review articles covering several topics, like enzymatic inhibition, surveys of the current knowledge of selected natural products, and studies on new materials and analytical techniques to investigate the mechanism of action of natural products in biological systems. Such an issue would be of great interest for several categiories of scientists operating in natural product chemistry, phytochemistry, pharmacology, molecular biology, pharmacognosy, and others. It was a pleasure for me to work with all authors and reviewers who exhibited enormous patience and professionalism during the preparation and review process of this special issue and to when I'm sending my special thanks.