News & Events

When

Date - September 13, 2023
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

What

Professor
Faculté de Pharmacie
BioCIS Lab
Université Paris-Saclay

Talk Title: “Digging Through the Data: Pursuing the Ideal Natural Product Discovery Scenario”

Abstract:

Landmark advances in bioinformatics tools and analytical chemistry, particularly in mass spectrometry (MS), have recently enhanced the field of natural product (NP) research, putting today’s practicing chemists in the enviable position of being able to efficiently speed up the NP discovery process. In this context, molecular networking has proven to be a very efficient tool to rapidly identify new NPs within complex mixtures. Since its introduction in 2012, this emerging computer-based approach has totally revolutionized the “art of NP isolation”, enabling the transition from the traditional “grind and find” model to the streamlined hypothesis driven targeting of NPs.

As part of our continuing interest in monoterpene indole alkaloid chemistry, we recently implemented an in-house MS/MS database, constituted of a cumulative collection of alkaloids from the global natural products research community. These endeavors led to the construction of the largest MS/MS dataset of MIAs to date, that we named: Monoterpene Indole Alkaloids DataBase (MIADB). Thanks to this database, we developed a streamlined molecular networking dereplication pipeline directed toward the reinvestigation of previously studied MIA-containing plants. This pipeline allowed to prioritize the isolation workflow toward new alkaloids bearing unprecedented carbon skeleton and interesting biological activities.

Further applications of the above-mentioned chemoinformatics pipeline have been directed toward the exploration of biomimetic one-pot total synthesis of marine natural products.

This presentation is intended to describe through selected cornerstone examples the new thinking in natural product chemistry resulting from the emergence of this new generation of sophisticated tools.