Current progress in natural product-like libraries for discovery screening

Natural product-like libraries represent an effort to combine the attractive features of natural products and combinatorial libraries for high-throughput screening. Three approaches to natural product-like library design are discussed: (1) Libraries based on core scaffolds from individual natural products, (2) libraries of diverse structures with general structural characteristics of natural products, and (3) libraries of diverse structures based on specific structural motifs from classes of natural products. Examples of successful applications in discovery screening are described for each category. These studies highlight the exciting potential of natural product-like libraries in both chemical biology and drug discovery.