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. 2009 Mar;10(3):194-200.
doi: 10.1038/embor.2009.12. Epub 2009 Feb 20.

Natural products and drug discovery. Can thousands of years of ancient medical knowledge lead us to new and powerful drug combinations in the fight against cancer and dementia?

Hong-Fang Ji  1 , Xue-Juan Li, Hong-Yu Zhang
Affiliations

Natural products and drug discovery. Can thousands of years of ancient medical knowledge lead us to new and powerful drug combinations in the fight against cancer and dementia?

Hong-Fang Ji et al. EMBO Rep. 2009 Mar.
No abstract available

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Molecular structures of natural inhibitors of acetylcholinesterase. (A) (−)-Huperzine A (EC 50 = 0.1 nM), physostigmine (EC 50 = 0.6 nM), bellidifolin (EC 50 = 0.15 nM) and ursolic acid (EC 50 = 7.5 nM). (B) Binding sites of these inhibitors on the acetylcholinesterase. (−)-Huperzine A is shown in red, physostigmine in yellow, bellidifolin in cyan and ursolic acid in orange. The X-ray structure of acetylcholinesterase and (−)-huperzine A was obtained from the Protein Data Bank (entry 1VOT). The binding of the other three inhibitors was calculated by using the FlexX module of SYBYL 7.0.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Binding modes of quercetin. Binding to (A) phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase; (B) helix–turn–helix-type transcriptional regulator; and (C) 3-hydroxyisobutyryl-CoA hydrolase.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Binding modes of quercetin and its precursors. (A) Aromadendrin with flavanone 3-dioxygenase; (B) taxifolin with flavonoid 3′,5′-hydroxylase; (C) quercetin with flavonol synthase. (D) Quercetin (cyan) superimposed with aromadendrin (red) and taxifolin (yellow). The structures of flavonoid 3′,5′-hydroxylase and flavonol synthase were modelled based on the crystal structures of cytochrome P450 from Homo sapiens (similarity: 49%) and anthocyanidin synthase from Arabidopsis thaliana (similarity: 62%) respectively, by using the homology module of Insight II.
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