Natural products in the 21st century

Abstract

Nature has been an extremely rich source in providing antibiotics for treatment of infections caused by pathogenic bacteria. The majority of the antibiotics used today are either natural products or derivatives of natural products, and they have been highly successful in the eradication of bacterial infections. Unfortunately, emergence of bacterial resistance to all antibiotics is a common occurrence, and the discovery of newer antibiotics with new modes of action is necessary to fight infections by resistant organisms. This chapter summarizes the traditional natural products discovery approaches of antibiotics and discusses the state of the art of the natural products-based antibiotics discovery and their future prospects.