Title:Natural Endoperoxides as Drug Lead Compounds
Volume: 23
Issue: 4
Author(s): Ming Bu, Burton B. Yang and Liming Hu
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Natural peroxide, endoperoxide, antimalarial peroxides, artemisinin, steroids, anticanceragent.
Abstract: Natural products, especially bioactive molecules as drug lead compounds, have
attracted extensive attention in health promotion and in drug discovery and development. It
is essential to understand the structures and functional mechanisms of these lead molecules
prior to drug development. This review provides comprehensive information for more than
130 newly reported peroxides appeared in the literature in the recent years. The compounds are natural peroxides
with bioactivities. While some of them appeared in previous reviews, a great number of newly-found
natural peroxides with up-dated information are extensively reviewed in this article, which focuses on the biological
activities based on various structural classes including monoterpenoids, sesquiterpenoids, diterpenoids,
sesterterpenoids, triterpenoids and steroidal peroxy compounds isolated from terrestrial and marine sources.
These natural peroxides are valuable sources in drug discovery with antitumor and antimalarial activities.
