The screening toolbox of bioactive substances from natural products A review.pdf

Fitoterapia 82 (2011) 1141–1151 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Fitoterapia j ourna l homepage: www.e lsev ie / locate / f i to teReview The screening toolbox of bioactive substances from natural products: A review Bochu Wang a,?, Jia Deng a, Yimeng Gao b, Liancan Zhu a, Rui He a, Yingqian Xu a a Key Laboratory of Biorheological Science and Technology (Chongqing University), Ministry of Education, College of Bioengineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400030, PR China b College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400030, PR Chinaa r t i c l e i n f o? Corresponding author. Tel.:+86 23 fax E-mail address: wangbc2000@126.com (B. Wang) 0367-326X/$ – see front matter. Crown Copyright ? doi:10.1016/j.fitote.2011.08.007a b s t r a c tArticle history: Received 12 June 2011 Accepted in revised form 30 July 2011 Available online 12 August 2011Hunting lead compounds from natural products plays a vital role in finding successful drug candidates. The efficiency of screening campaigns is mainly determined by the validity of selected screening models. To screen desired lead compounds, researchers have developed a plethora of experimental screening models. However, the considerable diversity of screening models from animal models, tissue models, to cell models and so on, may cause some trouble in choosing the suitable one. This review provides a toolbox of experimental screening models that have been used to discover new drug candidates from natural products. Two screening indexes are designed for different research directions in this screening toolbox. Index I is proposed from the direction of screening different objective substance populations, including plant extracts, active fractions and pure compounds; index Π is according to screening different drug properties, including pharmacological properties, pharmacokinetic properties and affinity binding properties. We hope that the abbreviated bibliographies will h