Natural Products Blog

Thomson Reuters have just released their 2012 Journal Citation Reports^®  and Natural Product Reports is #1 in both the Chemistry: Medicinal and Chemistry: Organic categories with an impact factor figure of 10.178!

With a truly international authorship publishing accessible and reader-friendly articles, NPR is the home of high impact, critical reviews in natural products research and related areas. The scope of the journal is broad and many reviews discuss the role of natural products in the wider bioinorganic, bioorganic and chemical biology communities. Areas covered include enzymology, nucleic acids, genetics, chemical ecology, carbohydrates, primary and secondary metabolism and analytical techniques.

Read the latest articles

Natural Product Reports’ key features:

• An excellent and professional service
• International editorial board, authorship and readership
• Indexed in MEDLINE and other major databases
• Free use of colour when it enhances the scientific understanding 

This is why Natural Product Reports is the leading journal in its field!

Thank you to all the authors, referees, readers and the members of our Editorial and Advisory Boards for your continued support which has led to this fantastic result.

The successes of all of RSC journals’ in the recent impact factor release can be found here, highlighting the quality of our publications.

Welcome to NPR Issue 3, 2013

I do not know about you, but I find these circular genome data visualization plots make amazing covers. The one featured on this month’s issue illustrates the exciting review article by Christian Hertweck et al., presenting a genomic approach to the cryptic secondary metabolome of the anaerobic word.

Read this article for Free for the next 6 weeks – and let us know what you think by posting a comment below!

You will remember that Professor Hertweck was the winner of the 2011 NPR Lecture Award, and so that you may read more about his work at the forefront of natural products research, we’ve collated two of his previous NPR review articles below:

The chemistry and biology of cytochalasans
Kirstin Scherlach, Daniela Boettger, Nicole Remme and Christian Hertweck
Nat. Prod. Rep., 2010, 27, 869-886 

Type II polyketide synthases: gaining a deeper insight into enzymatic teamwork
Christian Hertweck, Andriy Luzhetskyy, Yuri Rebets and Andreas Bechthold
Nat. Prod. Rep., 2007, 24, 162-190 

This issue’s Highlight article is by John A. Porco Jr. et al. and summarizes key advancements in the construction of polycyclic xanthones, which have recently attracted significant attention due to their potential as antitumour agents.

Then, Victoria L. Challinor and James J. De Voss review the structure elucidation, bioactivities, biosynthesis, and distribution in the plant kingdom of open-chain steroidal glycosides, which represent a numerous, structurally diverse class of plant saponins.

Finally Yonghong Liu et al. provide an up-to-date account of sesterterpenoids, which structural conciseness and diverse bioactivity have made them attractive targets to the synthetic chemist, with biomedical purposes. 

Short and sweet, a selection we hope you will like!

Welcome to NPR Issue 1, 2013!

At NPR we’re kick-starting the New Year with a selection of exciting Highlight and Review articles we think you will like…

Interested in antibiotics? Read works by Yeo Joon Yoon et al. highlighting aminoglycosides, the review by Christopher J. Schofield et al. on biosynthetic pathways leading to the different classes of β-lactam antibiotics (cover article), or learn all about the tiacumicin odyssey in this overview by Jieping Zhu et al. of the chemistry and biology of tiacumicins since their discovery to the marketed drug.

Speaking of ribosomally synthesized natural products? Wilfred van der Donk led an impressive international multiauthored article on establishing a uniform and readily recognized nomenclature for ribosomally synthesized and posttranslationally modified natural products. The whole community came together and made a recommendation, the results of which you can read in this article. Read more about it in this post.

This issue wouldn’t be complete without Christopher Walsh and Timothy A. Wencewicz’s work on flavoenzymes as versatile catalysts in biosynthetic pathways, that enable the many chemical transformations building complexity in the biosynthesized natural products architecture.

All these articles are Free to Access for an unlimited period  – enjoy and spread the word!

 Want to see your work in NPR?

Reviews, Highlights and Viewpoints in NPR are generally solicited by members of the editorial board; however we are happy to consider submission enquiries from authors. If you are interested in writing an article for NPR please contact the editorial office with a brief synopsis.

We are delighted to announce that the 2013 NPR Lectureship award nominations are now open.

The NPR Lectureship is an annual event which is held at an international meeting. From 2013 the NPR Lectureship will be awarded to an Emerging Investigator, with the recipient being a researcher who has made a significant contribution to any natural products-related in their early independent career. Nominees should have completed their PhD on or after the 31st December 2000.

To nominate, please send the name of the person along with a brief justification to NPR Editor, Richard Kelly. Nominations are open to everyone and should be received by 31st December 2012.

The winner will be selected by a panel of judges and the result will be annouced in early 2013. The 2012 winner was Dean Tantillo, UC Davis Chemistry, USA whose research contributed significantly to the understanding of mechanistic enzymology.

Natural Product Updates

Natural Product Updates (NPU) provides graphical abstracts of new developments in natural product chemistry, selected from dozens of key primary journals. Coverage includes:

• Isolation studies
• Biosynthesis
• New natural products
• Known compounds from new sources
• Structure determinations
• New properties and biological activities     

Around 200 graphical abstracts are contained in each monthly bulletin, including structure diagrams, trivial and taxonomic names, molecular formulae, physical and biological properties

Browse this Database

Subscribers to the monthly print bulletin also have free access to Natural Product Updates Online – the fully searchable web database which allows users to search across all items published in Natural Product Updates to date. This service provides full text search capability on a variety of terms.

An email alerting service is also available, allowing users to sign up for an email message every time a new monthly bulletin is published online.

Natural Product Updates, is now structure searchable in ChemSpider…

Want to know more about ChemSpider?

Read all about the free chemical structure database providing fast search access to over 26 million structures from hundreds of data sources, and follow the latest news and development on the ChemSpider blog.

Welcome to Natural Product Reports Issue 11, 2012

The cover this month illustrates work by Massimo E. Maffei (University of Turin) et al. presenting the diversity of plants defense mechanisms that are activated when plants are under attack from potentially dangerous microbes and insect herbivores, and plant-plant interactions. Enjoy FREE access to this article for the next 6 weeks upon a simple registration process:

Natural elicitors, effectors and modulators of plant responses
Massimo E. Maffei, Gen-Ichiro Arimura and Axel Mithöfer
DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20053H

Also in this issue, read:

Bioactive natural products from Lysobacter
Yunxuan Xie, Stephen Wright, Yuemao Shen and Liangcheng Du
DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20064C

Natural product ‘legal highs’
Warunya Arunotayanun and Simon Gibbons
DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20068F

Natural stilbenoids: distribution in the plant kingdom and chemotaxonomic interest in Vitaceae
Céline Rivière, Alison D. Pawlus and Jean-Michel Mérillon
DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20049J

Natural sesquiterpenoids
Braulio M. Fraga
DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20074K

• Have you read the Natural Products themed issue from our sister journal MedChemComm?

Guest edited by Professor Christopher Walsh and Dr Sylvie Garneau-Tsdodikova, the issue contains some of the newest discoveries in the field, along with 9 review articles that will lead the reader through exciting natural products research. Let us know what you think!

Do you know about Natural Product Updates?

Natural Product Updates (NPU) gives you the molecules involved in key developments in natural product chemistry. Thanks to our work in interpreting what chemists mean, not just what chemists draw, ChemSpider now links to NPU’s data for 13800 natural products since 2005, of which 7800 are brand new to ChemSpider.

Where ChemSpider has information on a compound in NPU you will see the image above, as in, for example, calothrixin B. This is a link to NPU page on the RSC Publishing Platform.

Soon we’ll be integrating more of our graphical databases into ChemSpider. Watch this space!

Want to know more about ChemSpider?

Read all about the free chemical structure database providing fast search access to over 26 million structures from hundreds of data sources, and follow the latest news and development on the ChemSpider blog.

Welcome to Natural Product Reports Issue 9, 2012

NPR‘s cover this month features artwork by Isabelle Andre et al. that illustrates their review article covering the main biological routes to sucrose derivatives or analogs that are prevalent in nature. The review also higlights the potential applications of sucrose derivatives in sugar bioconversion, in particular through the engineering of substrates, enzymes or microorganisms.

Sucrose analogs: an attractive (bio)source for glycodiversification
David Daudé, Magali Remaud-Siméon and Isabelle André
DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20054F

Enjoy FREE access to this article for the next 6 weeks upon a simple registration process.

Also in this September issue, we trust you will find the following reviews intersting and stimulating to read. Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below!

• The nonribosomal synthesis of diketopiperazines in tRNA-dependent cyclodipeptide synthase pathways
  Pascal Belin, Mireille Moutiez, Sylvie Lautru, Jérôme Seguin, Jean-Luc Pernodet and Muriel Gondry
  DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20010D

• Isolation, biological activity, synthesis, and medicinal chemistry of the pederin/mycalamide family of natural products
  R. Adam Mosey and Paul E. Floreancig
  DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20052J

• Lasso peptides: structure, function, biosynthesis, and engineering
  Mikhail O. Maksimov, Si Jia Pan and A. James Link
  DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20070H

• Plants as sources of new antimicrobials and resistance-modifying agents
  Ana Cristina Abreu, Andrew J. McBain and Manuel Simões
  DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20035J

Welcome to Natural Product Reports Issue 8, 2012

Featuring on this month’s cover is work by Hajer Abdelkafi and Bastien Nay at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle (CNRS-MNHN, Paris, France) on natural products from the Cephalotaxus sp., which belongs to the Cephalotaxaceae family of conifers.

This genus has showed to provide both interesting alkaloids with anticancer potential, and original norditerpene tropones with cytotoxic activity. In this review article the authors present a phytochemical update and discuss the total synthesis of alkaloids and terpenoids in detail.

Natural products from Cephalotaxus sp.: chemical diversity and synthetic aspects
Hajer Abdelkafi and Bastien Nay
DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20037F

Why not also read in this issue:

Robert A. Hill and Andrew Sutherland’s Hot off the Press showcasing a personal selection of 32 recent papers covering current developments in bioorganic chemistry and novel natural products such as lycojaponicumin A from Lycopodium japonicum:

• Hot off the Press
  Robert A. Hill and Andrew Sutherland
  DOI: 10.1039/C2NP90024F

• Biosynthesis of mycobacterial methylglucose lipopolysaccharides
  Vitor Mendes, Ana Maranha, Susana Alarico and Nuno Empadinhas
  DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20014G

• The generation of “unNatural” products: Synthetic biology meets synthetic chemistry
  Rebecca J. M. Goss, Sreejith Shankar and Antoine Abou Fayad
  DOI: 10.1039/C2NP00001F

• Diterpenoids of terrestrial origin
  James R. Hanson
  DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20051A

• Strained cyclophane natural products: Macrocyclization at its limits
  Tanja Gulder and Phil S. Baran
  DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20034A

Like what you read? If you would like to contribute an article to NPR, please contact the editorial office with a proposed topic and we will be pleased to evaluate your synopsis.