Advances in the Discovery of Active Natural Products by Large Fragment Cloning

Abstract:

Active natural products have diverse structures and activities and can be a major source of small molecule drugs. Given the emergence of multi-drug resistant bacteria and superbacteria, there is an urgent need to develop new active natural products. Large fragment cloning has been an important tool for the discovery of active natural products in recent years, and it has demonstrated obvious advantages in obtaining the biosynthetic gene clusters of active natural products. This approach, combined with efficient cluster-targeted screening methods, has significantly accelerated the discovery of active natural products. This review summarizes a wide variety of active natural products. Furthermore, this paper elaborates on the principles and applications of several large fragment cloning technologies, including artificial chromosome technology, Red/ET recombination system, and TAR technology coupled with the CRISPR-Cas9 system. This paper compares the advantages, disadvantages, and application scopes of different technologies and envisions their future prospects, aiming to provide theoretical guidance for the research and development of active natural products.