Natural Product Research: From Isolation to Functional Validation
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Bioactives and Nutraceuticals".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2026
Special Issue Editor
Interests: analytical chemistry; chromatography; extraction; phytochemistry; food technology; essential oils; aromas; herbal drug development; antioxidants; dietary supplements; special fats technology; quality and food safety; food contaminations
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue, titled “Natural Product Research: From Isolation to Functional Validation”, covers contemporary research on natural products and bioactive compounds, with an emphasis on the full scientific value chain, from rational sourcing and isolation, through rigorous structural identification, to functional and mechanistic validation at the molecular level.
Natural products—derived from plants, microorganisms, fungi, endophytes, and organisms inhabiting extreme environments—remain a major source of structurally diverse secondary metabolites with strong application potential in pharmacy, biomedicine, functional foods, nutraceuticals, and biotechnology. At the same time, there is growing need for phytochemical and analytical findings to be directly linked to functional evidence, including target identification, pathway-level analyses, structure–activity relationships, and assessment of safety and bioavailability.
This Special Issue particularly welcomes studies that integrate experimental and computational approaches, including molecular docking, ligand–protein interaction simulations, and (where appropriate) molecular dynamics, to support the interpretation of in vitro/in vivo results and to rationalize mechanisms of action. Contributions are also encouraged in the fields of metabolomics-based profiling (LC–HRMS/MS), dereplication and data integration, extract standardization, synergy studies, and validation in relevant cellular and animal models.
The Special Issue is interdisciplinary in scope and provides a forum connecting natural product chemistry with molecular biology, biochemistry, pharmacology, and bioinformatics, thereby facilitating the translation of research outcomes from “compound” to “function”.
Prof. Dr. Radosław Kowalski
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- natural products
- secondary metabolites
- bioactive compounds
- extraction and isolation
- green extraction
- structural elucidation
- metabolomics profiling (LC–HRMS/MS)
- dereplication
- functional validation
- molecular mechanisms
- molecular docking
- molecular modeling
- ligand–protein interactions
- structure–activity relationship (SAR)
- in vitro and in vivo studies
- bioavailability and safety
- antimicrobial activity
- antioxidant activity
- anticancer activity
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