Laboratory of Medicinal Plant Screening
1. Members
| Project leader | Kayo Yoshimatsu, Ph.D. |
|---|---|
| Sub-project leader | Hiroyuki Fuchino, Ph.D. |
| Researcher | Noriaki Kawano, Ph.D. Hirotaka Matsuo, Ph.D. |
| Technical staff | Hitomi Kawakami, B.Pharm. |
2. Background and objectives
The field of drug discovery has recently undergone some major changes with the introduction of new techniques such as genomic drug discovery. Accordingly, many methods that utilize natural products for drug development have become obsolete. However, in modern drug discovery techniques such as high-throughput screening, naturally occurring compounds, especially those of plant origin, are still highly applicable, as plants have the ability to biosynthesize compounds with unique chemical structures. For this reason, natural products remain important.
In this Project, we are constructing a large-scale extract library based on plant resources in Japan and abroad, for use in screening for various biological activities in the context of drug discovery.
3. Overview of our research
Recently, the methodologies for drug discovery have undergone remarkable changes. However, low-molecular weight synthetic compounds have been regarded as the foundation of modern drug discovery techniques, such as combinatorial chemistry and high-throughput screening (HTS). These molecules remind us of the importance of naturally occurring compounds, especially those of plant origin. Several large chemical libraries have been established domestically; by contrast, crude extract libraries have been limited to those containing materials of biological or marine origin. In particular, the creation of a plant origin extract library is difficult due to the highly specialized nature of plant identification. The Research Center for Medicinal Plant Resources in NIBIOHN has three experimental stations in Japan, allowing the collection of plant resources over a wide domestic area. The Medicinal Plant Screening Project hopes to facilitate drug discovery using a plant extract library as a tool for the evaluation of a wide range of biological activities, under collaboration agreements with many research institutes.
In this project, we are aggressively collecting plant materials in Japan and abroad to enhance our plant extract library. More than 10,000 varieties of plant extracts are available for biological screening. Also, to add to the fundamental information regarding this library, acquisition of LC/MS data (using ThermoFisher Scientific, Orbitrap-MS) and endotoxin tests for each sample are currently underway. Information regarding "the borderline of pharmaceuticals to non-pharmaceuticals in Japan" and "the food history of the world", as these topics relate to the botanical origins of the materials in the plant extract library, will be appended to address inquiries and interests arising from health food companies. In addition, this project will develop an effective methodology for identification of bioactive principles from multicomponent plant extracts using LC/MS analysis. To date, active anti-HCV compounds and components of fern active against knee osteoarthritis have been identified from this plant extract library.
