Natural Product Leads Targeting Inflammatory Pathways
A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Natural Products Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 July 2026 | Viewed by 109
Special Issue Editor
Interests: natural products chemistry; pharmacology; drug discovery; pharmacognosy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Excessive and often uncontrolled inflammation are common features of chronic illnesses in the human digestive tract (e.g., Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, and inflammatory bowel disease), and the immune (e.g., autoimmune disorders), circulatory (e.g., atherosclerosis and heart diseases), respiratory (e.g., chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and cystic fibrosis), metabolic (e.g., type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and obesity), and nervous (neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease) systems. The targets of inflammatory diseases are diverse and include immune cells, inflammatory cytokines, enzymes, transcription factors, and complex signalling pathways. While some pharmacological effects of drugs are linked to general mechanisms associated with diverse nonspecific pathways (e.g., antioxidant effects), some specific disease-associated inflammatory mechanisms are also evident. The most common over-the-counter medications used by patients are paracetamol, ibuprofen, and similar drugs, and they underpin the role of inflammation as a target for common human diseases. On the other hand, chronic inflammatory diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, lupus, ankylosing spondylitis, multiple sclerosis, celiac disease, psoriatic arthritis, and gout, are further examples manifesting the burden of such diseases in our societies. There is no drug that can cure chronic inflammatory diseases, and the existing drugs have several drawbacks, including high cost, poor efficacy, and undesirable side effects. It is against this background that this Special Issue was designed, in order to underpin the pivotal role of natural products as potential leads for drug discovery in these fields. On this note, numerous natural products, both crude preparations (plant, fungal, microbial, algal, etc.) and isolated compounds, have shown pharmacological efficacy against inflammation in vitro, in vivo, and under clinical conditions. Inflammatory targets of unique disease-specific receptors, enzymes, ion channels, etc., or multiple mechanisms (including general antioxidants and anti-inflammatory mechanisms) may explain the therapeutic potential of natural products. Thus, insights into therapies using natural products in the form of original research articles or reviews addressing inflammatory target(s) and/or inflammatory disease model(s) are welcome.
Dr. Solomon Habtemariam
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- natural products
- lead compounds
- anti-inflammatory
- inflammatory pathways
- drug discovery
- medicinal plants
- phytochemistry
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