Systematic Description of the Content Variation of Natural Products (NPs): To Prompt the Yield of High-Value NPs and the Discovery of New Therapeutics

Abstract

Natural products (NPs) have long been associated with human production and play a key role in the survival of species. Significant variations in NP content may severely affect the "return on investment" of NP-based industries and render ecological systems vulnerable. Thus, it is crucial to construct a platform that relates variations in NP content to their corresponding mechanisms. In this study, a publicly accessible online platform, NPcVar (http://npcvar.idrblab.net/), was developed, which systematically described the variations of NP contents and their corresponding mechanisms. The platform comprises 2201 NPs and 694 biological resources, including plants, bacteria, and fungi, curated using 126 diverse factors with 26,425 records. Each record contains information about the species, NP, and factors involved, as well as NP content data, parts of the plant that produce NPs, the location of the experiment, and reference information. All factors were manually curated and categorized into 42 classes which belong to four mechanisms (molecular regulation, species factor, environmental condition, and combined factor). Additionally, the cross-links of species and NP to well-established databases and the visualization of NP content under various experimental conditions were provided. In conclusion, NPcVar is a valuable resource for understanding the relationship between species, factors, and NP contents and is anticipated to serve as a promising tool for improving the yield of high-value NPs and facilitating the development of new therapeutics.

EMNPD: a comprehensive endophytic microorganism natural products database for prompt the discovery of new bioactive substances

“…To provide more comprehensive information, we also collected data on the host plants of endophyte, the plant parts from which these endophytes were isolated, and the geographic information of the host plants. Moreover, we collected data on the content of different NPs produced by these endophytes under various fermentation conditions, which are also available in NPASS 2.0 and NPcVar [ 36 ].…”

A terpenoids database with the chemical content as a novel agronomic trait

“…The content of natural products is affected by various factors. Recently, research found that the content of the same natural product can vary under different conditions, such as molecular regulation, species factor, environmental condition and combined factors ( 17–19 ). In the evolutionary formation of natural products, there are characteristics of convergent evolution ( 20 ).…”