Anthraquinones: analytical techniques as a novel tool to investigate on the triggering of biological targets

Approximately, 63% of marketed drugs derive from natural products or their semi synthetic derivatives. Compounds from living organisms often exert a biological activity, triggering several targets, which may be useful for the improvement of novel pharmaceuticals. These natural products can be extracted from plants, marine organisms, or microorganism fermentation broths. In the vast array of bioactive secondary metabolites known up to now, anthraquinones are among the most investigated natural products, in particular for what concerns their mechanism of action. This review focuses on the analytical aspects of anthraquinones, from their separation to recent and new high-throughputs techniques for the simultaneous determination of these analytes in biological matrices that can greatly contribute to sharply depict the targets of these secondary metabolites as well as on an updated survey of their biological activities.