Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
Greece to Western Europe, including England, during the ancient period and led
to its formal codification in the United Kingdom and to the publication of the
London Pharmacopoeia
in 1618.
The isolation of strychnine (
1
), morphine (
2
), atropine (
3
), colchicine (
4
), and
quinine (
5
) in the early 1800s from the commonly used plants and their use for the
treatment of certain ailments might constitute the early idea of “pure” compounds
as drugs. E. Merck isolated and commercialized morphine (
2
) as the first pure
natural product for the treatment of pain (1-3). Preparations of the Willow tree
have been used as a painkiller for a long period in traditional medicine. Isolation
of salicylic acid (
6
) as the active component followed by acetylation produced
the semisynthetic product called “Aspirin” (
7
) that was commercialized by Bayer
in 1899 for the treatment of arthritis and pain (4).
N
HO
N
HO
H
O
N
O
NMe
O
Strychnine (
1
)
O
O
H
HO
Morphine (
2
)
Atropine (
3
)
H
OMe
O
H
N
OMe
HO
MeO
CO
2
H
CO
2
H
MeO
NH
O
MeO
OH
Salicylic acid (
6
)
OAc
Aspirin (
7
)
N
Colchicine (
4
)
Quinine (
5
)
The World Health Organization estimates that herbal and traditional medicines,
derived mostly from plants, constitute primary health care for
∼
80% of the
world population even today. The compounds produced by plants play signif-
icant roles in the treatment of diseases for the rest of the 20% of populations
that are fortunate to use modern medicine. About 50% of the most prescribed
drugs in the United States consist of natural products or their semisynthetic
derivatives, or they were modeled after natural products. “Curare,” the crude
extract from the South American plant,
Chondodendron tomentosum
,andthe
derived purified compound tubocurarine, has been used as anesthetic in surgery
until recently. Purified digitoxin, as well as the crude extracts that contain dig-
italis glycosides from foxglove plant, Digitalis lanata, is used as cardiotonic
even today.
Drugs derived from microbial fermentations have played perhaps a bigger role
in the modern drug discovery and have revolutionized the practice of medicine,
which leads to saving human lives. Although the contribution of purified natural
products as single agent drugs is significant in almost all therapies, their contri-
bution in the treatment of bacterial infection is perhaps most critical (5). Natural
products constitute drugs or leads to all but three classes of antibiotics. The
