Enzymatic inhibitors from medicinal plants

The natural world is one of the major sources of molecules with medicinal properties known to humankind. Natural products have long been utilized by humans to cure a myriad of ailments. Many diseases are still treated using plant or algal extracts in the developing world where modern medicine is still scarce. Each year hundreds of novel inhibitors from the natural world capable of targeting essential biological human proteins or enzymes are discovered. The chemical and structural diversity of these molecules interests the researchers for their use in drug discovery. Chemical synthesis of most of these molecules is difficult in standard organic chemistry laboratories. This suggests that despite significant technical advances, drug discovery will continue to rely heavily on the discovery of novel natural bioactive compounds with drug-like action in the coming years. Some of these compounds have been considered to be potential therapeutic molecules due to their high selectivity or potency, and have been used in clinical trials. Given the limited amount of investment in natural products as main leads in drug discovery during the last few decades, 34% of the medications recognized by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) between 1981 and 2010 were either natural products or direct extracts from them.