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Review
. 2015 Aug;48(4):398-404.
doi: 10.1111/cpr.12190. Epub 2015 May 25.

Review of natural product databases

Tao Xie  1 , Sicheng Song  1 , Sijia Li  2 , Liang Ouyang  1 , Lin Xia  3 , Jian Huang  4
Affiliations
Review

Review of natural product databases

Tao Xie et al. Cell Prolif. 2015 Aug.

Abstract

Objectives: Many natural products have pharmacological or biological activities that can be of therapeutic benefit in treating diseases, and are also an important source of inspiration for development of potential novel drugs. The past few decades have witnessed extensive study of natural products for their promising prospects in application of medicinal chemistry, molecular biology and pharmaceutical sciences.

Materials and methods: Natural product databases have provided systematic collection of information concerning natural products and their derivatives, including structure, source and mechanisms of action, which significantly support modern drug discovery.

Results: Currently, a considerable number of natural product databases, such as TCM Database@Taiwan, TCMID, CEMTDD, SuperToxic and SuperNatural, have been developed, providing data such as integrated medicinal herbs, ingredients, 2D/3D structures of the compounds, related target proteins, relevant diseases, and metabolic toxicity and more.

Conclusions: We focus on an analytical overview of current natural product databases, and further discuss the good, bad or imperfection of current ones, in the hope of better integrating existing relevant outcomes, thus providing new routes for future drug discovery.

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Conflict of interest statement

We declare that none of the authors have a financial interest related to this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Exemplary information retrieval process through CEMTDD . CEMTDD allows a simple and fast query for Chinese ethnic minority herbs as described in this figure. Users' access to this website should first log in the searching interface located on the menu bar, where they are able to see the entry for herbs, compounds and targets. In this case, Salvia deserta Schang, a traditional herb from Xinjiang, was typed and ready for information retrieval, where herb‐related targets, chemicals and disease are exhibited and provide clues for scientific research.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Natural product database structure.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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