Prioritizing natural product compounds using 1D-TOCSY NMR spectroscopy.

Natural product (NP) secondary metabolites are designed evolutionarily to have biological effects in other organisms for defense and the mediation of ecological interactions. Their structural complexity and diversity complement biological systems, allowing them to display unique bioactivities. Although more than half of all pharmaceuticals stem from NPs, pharmaceutical companies have reduced NP-based drug discovery programs due to various time and cost-consuming pitfalls; the re-isolation of already known, bioactive compounds being one of the most common.