Natural products from Brazilian biodiversity as a source of new models for medicinal chemistry

Bolzani, Vanderlan da Silva; Valli, Marilia; Pivatto, Marcos; Viegas, Cláudio

doi:10.1351/PAC-CON-12-01-11

Pure Appl. Chem., 2012, Vol. 84, No. 9, pp. 1837-1846

http://dx.doi.org/10.1351/PAC-CON-12-01-11

Published online 2012-07-26

Natural products from Brazilian biodiversity as a source of new models for medicinal chemistry

Vanderlan da Silva Bolzani¹*, Marilia Valli¹, Marcos Pivatto¹ and Cláudio Viegas, Jr.²

¹ Departamento de Química Orgânica, Núcleo de Bioensaios, Biossíntese e Ecofisiologia de Produtos Naturais (NuBBE), Instituto de Química, UNESP – Universidade Estadual Paulista, C.P. 355, 14801-970, Araraquara, SP, Brazil
² Instituto de Química, Laboratório de Fitoquímica e Química Medicinal (LFQM), Universidade Federal de Alfenas, 37130-000, Alfenas, MG, Brazil

Abstract: Natural products are the inspiration for many valuable therapeutic agents and attest to biodiversity being a rich source of new molecular structures. Their value as templates for medicinal chemistry remains undisputed, even after the growth of the combinatorial chemistry era. Tropical environments, such as Brazilian biomes, offer a particularly rich potential for biologically active compounds with unique structures and continue to contribute toward modern drug discovery. Our bioprospecting of plant species of the Cerrado and Atlantic Forest biomes has yielded promising bioactive secondary metabolites, and we describe some of these molecules and semisynthetic derivatives as potential acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors.