Nature's Chemicals: The Natural Products that shaped our world

✍ Scribed by Firn R.

• Publisher: OUP
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 261
• Series: Oxford Biology
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Natural Products (NPs) is the term used to describe the hundreds of thousands of chemical compounds or substances that are continually produced by living organisms (plants and microbes). Hundreds of millions of tons of these chemicals are generated annually, and the trade in just a few of these has dominated human economic activity for thousands of years. Indeed the current world geopolitical map has been shaped by attempts to control the supply of a few of these compounds. Every day of our lives each human spends time and money trying to procure the NPs of their choice. However, despite their overwhelming influence on human culture, they remain poorly understood. Yet a knowledge of NPs can help in our search for new drugs, further the debate about GM manipulation, help us address environmental pollution, and enable a better understanding of drug trafficking.Nature's Chemicals is the first book to describe Natural Products (NPs) in an evolutionary context, distilling the few simple principles that govern the way in which organisms (including humans) have evolved to produce, cope with, or respond to NPs. It neatly synthesizes a widely dispersed literature and provides a general picture of NPs, encompassing evolution, history, ecology, and environmental issues (along with some deeper theory relevant to biochemistry), with the goal of enabling a wider section of the scientific community to fully appreciate the crucial importance of Natural Products to human culture and future survival.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 8
Preface......Page 6
Natural Products (NPs) and natural products—spot the difference......Page 12
NPs—the subject forms and then fragments......Page 14
Which organisms make NPs?......Page 20
What does this chapter tell us about the way science works?......Page 21
Making money from NPs......Page 24
The history of the human obsession with NPs......Page 29
What does this chapter tell us about how science works?......Page 67
Conclusion......Page 68
Summary......Page 70
Understanding molecular structures led to an understanding of biochemical pathways......Page 71
Placing biochemical pathways on metabolic maps......Page 72
The major NP pathways......Page 74
The terpenoid or the isoprenoid NPs......Page 75
The polyketide, phenylpropanoid and polyphenol NPs......Page 78
The alkaloids......Page 84
The glucosinolates......Page 86
What does this chapter tell us about the way science works?......Page 88
Are natural chemicals different from synthetic chemicals?......Page 90
The main reason for the difference—reagents versus enzymes as synthetic tools......Page 94
What does this chapter tell us about the way science works?......Page 100
Summary......Page 102
Reductionism—a scientific tool only as good as its user......Page 103
The development of ideas about why organisms evolved to make NPs......Page 104
Several ideas were advanced for why organisms made NPs......Page 106
The problem at the heart of the Chemical Co-evolution Model......Page 112
Building a new model to explain NP diversity—the Screening Hypothesis......Page 113
The interaction of molecules determines the interaction of organisms—the concept of biomolecular activity......Page 115
What do we know about the basis of biomolecular activity?......Page 116
The Law of Mass Action, binding sites and receptors—understanding why specific, potent biological activity is a rare property for any one chemical to possess......Page 119
The Law of Mass Action and the specificity of action of NPs......Page 122
The implications of the Law of Mass Action to the evolution of NPs—the Screening Hypothesis......Page 123
Chemical reactions or rearrangements......Page 130
Criticism of the Screening Hypothesis......Page 131
What does this chapter tell us about the way science works?......Page 136
The rise of public scepticism about ‘chemicals’......Page 138
The changing attitudes to pesticides and pharmaceutical drugs......Page 139
NPs—what they can tell us about chemical pollution......Page 149
Why an understanding of the evolution of NPs should underpin our attitudes to synthetic chemicals......Page 150
How have organisms evolved to live in the chemically complex world?......Page 152
The breakdown of NPs and synthetic chemicals—why chemicals do not accumulate in the environment......Page 156
Why do microbes degrade synthetic molecules?......Page 157
What does this chapter tell us about the way science works?......Page 160
Herbalism......Page 162
The modern pharmaceutical industry starts with a search for a way of making an NP......Page 163
NPs in the pharmaceutical industry—the era of antibiotics......Page 165
NPs in the pharmaceutical industry—the synthetic steroids......Page 170
NPs in the pharmaceutical industry—the era of anticancer drugs......Page 171
The future of NPs as pharmaceutical products......Page 173
What does this chapter tell us about the way science works?......Page 182
NPs and animal behaviour......Page 184
The role of NPs in governing the interactions between organisms......Page 185
Microbial interactions—did NPs evolve to play a role in ‘chemical warfare’?......Page 187
Multicellular organisms making and responding to NPs......Page 190
The evolution of NPs to counter new threats......Page 192
The Screening Hypothesis and inducibility......Page 196
Crosstalk—it is predicted by the Screening Hypothesis......Page 197
What does this chapter tell us about the way science works?......Page 199
Summary......Page 200
The legacy of the split of NP research from biochemistry—evolutionary theory was not fully exploited......Page 201
Genes, enzymes and enzyme products—a hierarchy of selection opportunities......Page 204
What shapes the metabolic map and pathways?......Page 205
How do new enzyme activities arise?......Page 206
The three main properties of molecules that can benefit cells......Page 207
Why are there so few major NP pathways?......Page 213
Primary and secondary metabolism—outmoded terms?......Page 215
What does this chapter tell us about how science works?......Page 216
What is genetic manipulation?......Page 218
How might one increase the value of a plant by changing its NP composition?......Page 219
How might an understanding of the Screening Hypothesis inform attempts to manipulate NP composition?......Page 220
Evidence for certainty......Page 222
Metabolomics—what it can and cannot tell us......Page 223
What does this chapter tell us about the way science works?......Page 227
Notes......Page 230
B......Page 250
C......Page 251
D......Page 252
F......Page 253
I......Page 254
M......Page 255
N......Page 256
P......Page 257
S......Page 258
V......Page 260
Z......Page 261