Research Progress of Target Identification Strategies for Natural Products

Natural products, due to their wide range of biological activities, have always been an important source for new drug development. The key steps in new drug research and development include drug screening and the identification of protein targets. The interaction between drug molecules and targets serves as the basis for exerting pharmacological activities, so clarifying the action targets of natural products is of great significance for elucidating their molecular mechanisms and promoting their application in clinical prevention and treatment. With the rapid development of life science and technologies, bioinformatics, and artificial intelligence, methods for identifying drug targets have been constantly updated and optimized, being divided mainly into two categories: the direct screening method for directly assessing the interaction between drugs and targets, and the indirect screening method for analyzing the changes in phenotypes and signaling pathways induced by drugs. These methods complement each other and together provide powerful tools for the identification of targets of natural products. This article reviews a variety of commonly used methods for identifying the targets of natural products, with the aim of providing some reference for subsequent research on drugs from natural products.