Natural compound

Natural products are an attractive source with varied structures that exhibit potent biological activities, and desirable pharmacological profiles. The core scaffold of a natural product can also provide a biologically validated framework upon which to display diverse functional groups. Inspired by bioactive natural products, natural product-like compounds, occupying the same chemical space, are ideally suited to explore and to facilitate understanding of biological pathways.

MCE 5K Natural Product-like Compound Library consists of 5,000 natural product-like compounds. Each compound has scaffold of natural products or Tanimoto coefficient >0.6 with natural products. The natural-likeness scoring of these compounds is >-2. What’s more, compounds in the library are drug-like and readily available for re-supply, making it a powerful tool for new drug research and development. It can be widely applied in high-throughput screening (HTS) and high-content screening (HCS).

From the discovery of traditional Chinese medicine to modern antibiotics, natural products have played an important role in the drug development process. A review of all FDA-approved drugs shows that natural products and natural product-like compounds account for more than one-third of all approved drugs. Nearly half of that came from mammals, a quarter from microbes, and a quarter from plants. Over time, the proportion of microbial natural products and natural product derivatives in approved drugs has increased. Natural products have natural advantages in drug development and can be used as lead compounds in drug discovery for drug identification and mechanism research.

MCE provides a unique collection of 5,019 natural compounds and natural product-like compounds that contain saccharides and glycosides, phenylpropanoids, quinones, flavonoids, terpenoids and glycosides, steroids, alkaloid, phenols, acids and aldehydes. Natural product and natural product-like compounds library is a useful tool for drug discovery that can be used for high-throughput screening (HTS) and high-content screening (HCS).

Natural products are an attractive source with varied structures that exhibit potent biological activities, and desirable pharmacological profiles. The core scaffold of a natural product can also provide a biologically validated framework upon which to display diverse functional groups. Inspired by bioactive natural products, natural product-like compounds, occupying the same chemical space, are ideally suited to explore and to facilitate understanding of biological pathways.

MCE 10K Natural Product-like Compound Library consists of 10,000 natural product-like compounds. Each compound has scaffold of natural products or Tanimoto coefficient >0.6 with natural products. The natural-likeness scoring of these compounds is >-2. What’s more, compounds in the library are drug-like and readily available for re-supply, making it a powerful tool for new drug research and development. It can be widely applied in high-throughput screening (HTS) and high-content screening (HCS).

Natural products are an attractive source with varied structures that exhibit potent biological activities, and desirable pharmacological profiles. The core scaffold of a natural product can also provide a biologically validated framework upon which to display diverse functional groups. Inspired by bioactive natural products, natural product-like compounds, occupying the same chemical space, are ideally suited to explore and to facilitate understanding of biological pathways.

MCE provides a unique collection of 45 natural product-like compounds that are structurally like Steroids, Tannins, Flavonoids, Quinones, Isoquinolines, etc. This library is an important source of lead compounds for drug discovery.

Unlike the 20 natural amino acids commonly found within living organisms, non-natural amino acids are synthesized through chemical or biosynthetic methods, thereby being endowed with unique chemical properties or biological activities. In drug development, these amino acids can be utilized to design novel pharmaceutical molecules that may exhibit superior pharmacological characteristics, such as increased selectivity, improved pharmacokinetic profiles, or reduced toxicity. In biomedical research, uon-natural amino acids can act as biological markers or probes for investigating biological processes like cell signaling, protein conformation, and protein-protein interactions. In addition, non-natural amino acids can also be used in the field of agriculture to develop new pesticides, plant growth regulators and so on.

Natural products are small molecular compounds that occur in nature and come from any organism, including primary and secondary metabolites. Natural products have potential biological activity and can be used as lead compounds for drug discovery. Nature has been a source of medicines for thousands of years, and a large number of drugs have been isolated from nature, many based on their use in traditional medicine. With the development of compound targets, there is an increasing need to screen for compound diversity. Through ongoing research into natural biodiversity, much of which remains to be exploited, natural products will play a key role in meeting this demand. The Lipinski rule of 5 is used to describe the drug-like properties of a molecule, molecules that adhere to the rule of 5 have higher drug potential. Based on MCE natural product library, MCE selects the molecules that obey the rule of 5, which makes the efficiency of drug screening higher.

MCE designs a unique collection of 2,817 RO5 drug-like natural products, which is an important tool for drug discovery.

Natural products are small molecules produced naturally by any organism including primary and secondary metabolites. Natural sources may lead to basic research on potential bioactive components for commercial development as lead compounds in drug discovery.

Nature has been a source of medicinal agents for thousands of years, and an impressive number of modern drugs have been isolated from natural sources, many based on their use in traditional medicine. With the development of new molecular targets, there is an increasing demand for novel molecular diversity for screening. Natural products will play a crucial role in meeting this demand through the continued investigation of world’s bio-diversity, much of which remains unexplored.

MCE provides a unique collection of 6,181 natural compounds that contains Saccharides and Glycosides, Phenylpropanoids, Quinones, Flavonoids, Terpenoids and Glycosides, Steroids, Alkaloid, Phenols, Acids and Aldehydes. Natural Product Library Plus, with more powerful screening capability, further complements Natural Product Library (HY-L021) by adding some compounds with low solubility or solution stability (Part B) to this library. All those supplementary are supplied in powder form.

At the forefront of innovative drug discovery, every medicinal chemist faces the challenge of rapidly identifying high-quality hit compounds from vast repositories of chemical resources.

The MCE Natural Product Diversity Scaffold Library is the result of a streamlined optimization process built upon our existing natural product collection. Adhering to the rigorous selection principle of "retaining only one representative compound per BMS scaffold", we have concentrated the diversity of thousands of compounds into a high-value, low-redundancy core set containing 2,283 compounds. All compounds are derived from natural sources, inheriting their inherent advantages of structural complexity and drug-likeness. By eliminating redundancy, the library size is significantly reduced without any compromise to chemical diversity. This approach effectively lowers the cost and time required for primary screening while simplifying downstream data analysis and structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies.

Natural products are small molecules produced naturally by any organism including primary and secondary metabolites. Natural sources may lead to basic research on potential bioactive components for commercial development as lead compounds in drug discovery.

Nature has been a source of medicinal agents for thousands of years, and an impressive number of modern drugs have been isolated from natural sources, many based on their use in traditional medicine. With the development of new molecular targets, there is an increasing demand for novel molecular diversity for screening. Natural products will play a crucial role in meeting this demand through the continued investigation of world’s bio-diversity, much of which remains unexplored.

MCE provides a unique collection of 4,974 natural compounds that contain Saccharides and Glycosides, Phenylpropanoids, Quinones, Flavonoids, Terpenoids and Glycosides, Steroids, Alkaloid, Phenols, Acids and Aldehydes. Natural Product Library is a useful tool for drug discovery that can be used for high throughput screening (HTS) and high content screening (HCS).

This library contains about 439,804 natural and synthetic screening compounds. The information in the database includes logP, H-bond donors, H-bond acceptors, rotable bonds.

With features of enormous scaffold diversity and structural complexity, natural products (NPs) are the main sources of lead compounds and new drugs and play a highly significant role in the drug discovery and development process, especially for cancer and infectious diseases. A large number of natural products have been proven to have potential anti-tumor effects, mainly from plants, animals, Marine organisms and microorganisms. At present, derived than 60% of anti-tumor drugs come from natural sources, and they are widely used in breast, prostate and colon cancers.

MCE offers a unique collection of 1,934 natural products with validated anti-cancer activity. MCE anti-cancer natural product library is a useful tool for anti-tumor drugs screening and other related research.

For thousands of years, natural products have always been an important source for drug discovery. Fungi, due to their unique and diverse secondary metabolic capabilities, have become a valuable resource for natural active molecules. Since the discovery of penicillin, natural products derived from fungi have demonstrated significant application value in areas such as anti-infection, anti-tumor, immune regulation, and metabolic disease research. A large number of clinical drugs, such as antibiotics, immunosuppressants, and lipid-lowering drugs, are derived from fungal metabolites or their structurally optimized derivatives.

MCE fungal-derived compound library contains 88 structurally diverse and bioactive fungal natural products and their derivatives. It can be widely applied in various research fields such as antibacterial, anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory, immune regulation, epigenetics, and cell signaling pathways, providing high-quality tools for natural product drug development and high-throughput screening.

Bioactive compounds are a general term for a class of substances that can cause certain biological effects in the body, which are the main source of small molecule drugs. These compounds generally penetrate cell membranes, act on specific target proteins in cells, regulate intracellular signaling pathways, and cause some changes in cell phenotype.

MCE owns a unique collection of 26,192 compounds with confirmed biological activities and clear targets. These compounds include natural products, innovative compounds, approved compounds, and clinical compounds. These can also be used for signal pathway research, drug discovery and drug repurposing, etc.

Oceans cover more than 70% of the Earth’s surface and host a huge species diversity. Marine organisms are considered the most recent source of bioactive natural products after terrestrial plants and nonmarine microorganisms. Marine biological sources are taxonomically diverse and include sponges, tunicates, corals, mollusks, fungi, and sediment-derived bacteria.

Marine organisms can produce a plethora of small molecules with novel chemical structures and potent biological properties, being a rich source for the discovery of pharmacologically active compounds, already with several marine-derived agents approved as drugs. Ziconotide, a peptide originally discovered in a tropical cone snail, was the first marine-derived compound to be approved in the United States in December 2004 for the treatment of pain. Then, in October 2007, Trabectedin became the first marine anticancer drug to be approved in the European Union.

MCE offers a unique collection of 63 marine-sourced natural products which can be used for drug discovery for high throughput screening (HTS) and high content screening (HCS). MCE marine-sourced natural product library is an important source for drug discovery and development.

Peptidomimetics are compounds whose essential elements (pharmacophore) mimic a natural peptide or protein in 3D space and which retain the ability to interact with the biological target and produce the same biological effect. Peptidomimetics are designed to circumvent some of the problems associated with a natural peptide: e.g. stability against proteolysis (duration of activity) and poor bioavailability. Certain other properties, such as receptor selectivity or potency, often can be substantially improved. The design and synthesis of peptidomimetics are most important because of the dominant position peptide and protein-protein interactions play in molecular recognition and signaling, especially in living systems. Hence mimics have great potential in drug discovery.

MCE Peptidomimetic Library contains 370 compounds including peptoid, α-helix mimetics, β-turn/sheets mimetics, etc. This library is an indispensable tool of structure-activity relationships in drug discovery.

Flavonoids are an important class of natural products; particularly, they belong to a class of plant secondary metabolites having a polyphenolic structure, widely found in fruits, vegetables and certain beverages. Flavonoids can be subdivided into different subgroups depending on the carbon of the C ring on which the B ring is attached and the degree of unsaturation and oxidation of the C ring. These subgroups are: flavones, flavonols, flavanones, flavanonols, flavanols or catechins, anthocyanins and chalcones. Flavonoids are now considered as an indispensable component in a variety of nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, medicinal and cosmetic applications. This is attributed to their anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, anti-mutagenic and anti-carcinogenic properties coupled with their capacity to modulate key cellular enzyme function. Naturally occurring flavonoids are known to have biological activities for use as drugs, for example, in diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), atherosclerosis, etc.

MCE offers a unique collection of 576 natural flavonoid compounds which is a useful tool for drug discovery as an important source of lead compounds.

A unique set of molecules containing mild electrophilic moieties that covalently interact with amino acid residues in the target protein. The diversity of our compounds for covalent drug discovery ranges from natural product-like scaffolds to macrocycles, creating multiple opportunities in hit generation for a selected target.

Phenolic compounds are usually referred to as a diverse group of naturally occurring compounds with multiple medical properties, such as antioxidants, antimicrobial properties. Those compounds are commonly found in food and plants. They have high synthetic, medicinal and industrial values. Polyphenols are compounds with multiple phenolic functionalities. Naturally occurring polyphenols are known to have biological activities for use as drugs, for example, in diseases like AIDS, heart ailments, ulcer formation, bacterial infection, mutagenesis and neural disorders.

MCE offers a unique collection of 1,290 natural phenol compounds which is a useful tool for drug discovery as an important source of lead compounds.

Terpenoids, also known as isoprenoids, are the most numerous and structurally diverse natural products found in many plants. Terpenoids are divided into monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, diterpenes, sesterpenes, and triterpenes depending on its carbon units. Several studies, in vitro, preclinical, and clinical have confirmed that this class of compounds displays a wide array of very important pharmacological properties in the fight against cancer, malaria, inflammation, and a variety of infectious diseases. Naturally occurring terpenoids provide new opportunities to discover new drugs with minimum side effects.

MCE designs a unique collection of 768 terpenoid compounds that all come from natural products. MCE Terpenoids Library is a useful tool for drug discovery that can be used for high throughput screening (HTS) and high content screening (HCS).

Quinone compounds are a significant class of natural products featuring a conjugated quinone structure, widely distributed in plants, fungi, and microorganisms. Based on their core structures, they can be primarily categorized into benzoquinones, naphthoquinones, phenanthrenequinones, and anthraquinones, among others. This structural diversity endows quinone compounds with a broad spectrum of pharmacological activities, making them key components in traditional Chinese medicine (such as rhubarb, Lithospermum erythrorhizon, and Salvia miltiorrhiza). Modern research has confirmed that their activities encompass anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, antiplatelet aggregation, and neuroprotective effects, among others, establishing them as an important source for drug development.

MCE designs a unique collection of 92 quinones that all come from natural products. MCE Quinones Library is a useful tool for drug discovery that can be used for high throughput screening (HTS) and high content screening (HCS).

Bioactive compounds are a general term for a class of substances that can cause certain biological effects in the body, which are the main source of small molecule drugs. These compounds generally penetrate cell membranes, act on specific target proteins in cells, regulate intracellular signaling pathways, and cause some changes in cell phenotype.

MCE owns a unique collection of 32,710 compounds with confirmed biological activities and clear targets. These compounds include natural products, innovative compounds, approved compounds, and clinical compounds. This library is a useful tool for signal pathway research, drug discovery and drug repurposing, etc.

Bioactive Compound Library Plus, with more powerful screening capability, further complements Bioactive Compound Library (HY-L001) by adding some compounds with low solubility or solution stability (Part B) and some novel, rare or exclusive compounds (Part C) to this library. Overall, bioactive compound library plus (HY-L001P) includes tree parts: Part A, Part B and Part C. Compounds in Part A are equal to the products in HY-L001, which can be supplied in solution or solid form. Compounds in Part B and C are only supplied in solid form.

Heterocyclic compounds are cyclic organic compounds which contain at least one hetero atom, the most common heteroatoms are nitrogen, oxygen ,and sulfur. Heterocycles are common in biology, featuring a wide range of structures from enzyme co-factors to amino acids and proteins. On the one hand, heterocycles are common structural units in approved drugs and in medicinal chemistry targets in the drug discovery process. In addition, heterocycles have been found as a key structure in medical chemistry and also they are frequently found in large percent of biomolecules such as vitamins, natural products ,and biologically active compounds including antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antioxidant, antiallergic, anti-HIV, antidiabetic, anticancer activity.

MCE offers a unique collection of 6,484 heterocyclic compounds which can be used for drug discovery for high throughput screening (HTS) and high content screening (HCS). MCE heterocyclic compound library is critical for drug discovery and development.

Alkaloids are a large and complex group of cyclic compounds that contain N. About 2,000 different alkaloids have been isolated. Important alkaloids include morphine, strychnine, atropine, colchicine, ephedrine, quinine, and nicotine. Alkaloids are useful as diet ingredients, supplements, and pharmaceuticals, in medicine and in other applications in human life. They showed anti-inflammatory, anticancer, analgesics, local anesthetic and pain relief, neuropharmacologic, antimicrobial, antifungal, and many other activities. Alkaloids are also important compounds in organic synthesis for searching new semisynthetic and synthetic compounds with possibly better biological activity than parent compounds.

MCE designs a unique collection of 599 alkaloids that all come from natural products. MCE Alkaloids Library is a useful tool for drug discovery that can be used for high throughput screening (HTS) and high content screening (HCS).

Increasing research have shown that Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) possess antiviral activities against various viral strains, such as herpes simplex virus, influenza virus, hepatitis B and C viruses, and SARS-CoV. To date, dozens of Chinese herbs and hundreds of natural TCM ingredients have been reported to exhibit good antiviral activities. Active components from TCM are one of the important sources for antiviral drugs discovery.

MCE designs a unique collection of 235 active compounds of antiviral Chinese Herbal Medicines. MCE Antiviral Traditional Chinese Medicine Active Compound Library is a useful tool for discovery antiviral drugs from TCM.

Traditional Chinese medicine provides abundant natural resources for medicinal compounds, which are often considered effective and safe for drug discovery. Traditional Chinese medicine is based on the principle of "multiple components, multiple targets, and multiple pathways", and naturally has multiple pharmacological effects. As herbal medicine, the secondary plant metabolites in Chinese herbal medicine play an important role in alleviating many diseases in Traditional medicine and folk use. Therefore, the identification of traditional Chinese medicine derived compounds is also an important process in drug development and a necessary factor in dissecting the overall mechanism of action of traditional Chinese medicine. FDA listed compounds have completed extensive preclinical and clinical studies, exhibiting good biological activity, safety, and bioavailability.

MCE designs a unique collection of 308 FDA/EMA/NMPA/PMDA etc-approved traditional Chinese medicine active compounds, including flavonoids, polyphenols, alkaloids, terpenoids, and other structural types. It is a good tool for drug reuse and screening drugs from traditional Chinese medicine sources.

Nature has been a source of medicinal products for millennia, with many useful active substances developed from plant sources. In the 20th century, the discovery of the penicillin was the starting point for drug discovery from microbial sources. Microorganisms， which have been considered to be a rich source of unique bioactive compounds, play an important role in the development of the chemistry of natural products and medical therapy. Microbial metabolites have proved to be affective antimicrobial agents, anti-tumor agents, enzyme inhibitors, anti-inflammatory agents, etc. Today, many microbial-originated antibiotics are available in the mark, and a large number of bioactive metabolites are used in medicine.

MCE provides a unique collection of 914 microbial metabolites, which is an important source of lead compounds and can be used for drug discovery.

The rising prevalence of multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant bacteria, combined with emerging resistance mechanisms and the limitations of existing antibacterial drugs, creates an urgent need for novel antibacterial agents. Antibacterial compound libraries serve as key tools to support antibacterial drug screening and development.

This library features structurally diverse compounds, including small-molecule scaffolds and natural product derivatives, and exhibits diverse antibacterial mechanisms of action. For example, these compounds exert antibacterial effects by disrupting bacterial cell structures, interfering with bacterial metabolic processes, and inhibiting nucleic acid synthesis. The derivation of scaffold structures enhances their activity against drug-resistant bacteria and their selectivity against different types of bacteria. This library can be used for the high-throughput screening of novel antibacterial drug candidates and the identification of potent compounds against drug-resistant and multidrug-resistant bacteria. Additionally, it provides a reference for compound structural modification, enabling further in-depth research on the structure-activity relationships(SARs) of antibacterial drugs. It can also be applied to the exploration of bacterial resistance mechanisms and reversal strategies, as well as the discovery of antibacterial molecules that inhibit efflux pumps and restore drug susceptibility.

The library contains 10855 structurally diverse drug-like compounds. Its core compound sources include analogs of known antifungal active moleculeswith a similarity score of ≥ 0.6. MCE has collected more than 1900 antibacterial molecules. All screened compounds conform to lead-like physicochemical properties, providing valuable support for the research and development of novel antibacterial drugs.

Inflammation promotes physiological and pathological processes by the activation of the immune system, local vascular system, and various cells within the damaged tissue. Accumulating epidemiological and clinical evidence shows that chronic inflammation is causally linked to various human diseases, including cerebrovascular, cardiovascular, joint, cutaneous, pulmonary, blood, liver, and intestinal diseases as well as diabetes.

Various natural products from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) have been shown to safely suppress proinflammatory pathways and control inflammation-associated disease. MCE designs a unique collection of 1,535 Traditional Chinese Medicine active compounds with anti-inflammatory activity, which are derived from Coptis chinensis, Radix isatidis, Flos Lonicerae, Forsythia suspensa, etc. MCE Anti-inflammatory Traditional Chinese Medicine Active Compound Library is a useful tool for discovery anti-inflammatory drugs from TCM.

On May 15, 2024, "Dimerization and antidepressant recognition at noradrenaline transporter" was published online by Nature. The research findings were an effort from Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences. This study unraveled the important neural system target - the noradrenaline transporter (NET), obtaining the binding modes of human NET homodimers with the natural substrate norepinephrine (NE) and six selective antidepressants. It laid an important theoretical foundation for understanding the physiological regulation mechanisms of NET and other monoamine transporters.

The Norepinephrine Transporter (NET) Compound Library is obtained by computer-aided virtual screening based on the HY-L901 compound library . The specific screening process includes molecular docking screening, key pharmacophore screening, and CNS-MPO screening, which can be used for new drug discovery targeting the noradrenaline transporter.

Unnatural amino acids (UAAs), also referred to as non-canonical amino acids (ncAAs) or non-proteinogenic amino acids, are a class of amino acids that are distinct from the 20 standard natural amino acids. They can be obtained through chemical synthesis, biosynthesis, and other approaches, with structural diversity far exceeding that of natural amino acids. UAAs are mainly including naturally occurring non-canonical amino acids, chemically synthesized amino acids, and biosynthetic amino acids, which provide a molecular basis for protein function design.

UAAs exhibit significant value in multiple fields. They can optimize the pharmacokinetic properties of peptide drugs and peptidomimetics, modify enzyme functions and endow them with new biological activities, thereby overcoming the limitations of traditional peptide drugs and expanding the chemical space . Meanwhile, UAAs can serve as molecular probes to analyze protein-protein interactions and investigate the regulatory mechanisms of protein functions.

MCE has compiled a UAAs Fragment Library comprising nearly a thousand unnatural amino acid fragments with extensive coverage of chemical space and enhanced structural diversity. This compound library can be widely applied in peptide synthesis, drug design, and protein engineering.

Polysaccharides are long chains of carbohydrate molecules, consisting of multiple smaller monosaccharides. Polysaccharides are found mainly in natural sources such as plants, microorganisms, algae and animals. Polysaccharides have a large number of active functional groups, different chemical compositions and different molecular weight ranges, which determines their diversity in nature and structure. Also in the field of medical research, polysaccharides act as a class of functional compounds and thus play a role. For example, nanocarrier construction, immunomodulation and vaccine development, new strategies for antitumor therapy, tissue regeneration engineering applications and disease diagnosis. With the advancement of glycomics and synthetic biotechnology, human beings are moving from “knowing polysaccharides” to “designing polysaccharides”, which will provide innovative solutions for materials science, precision medicine and sustainable development.

MCE offers 68 polysaccharides that can be used in biomedical studies.

Dietary supplement, also known as nutritional supplement or food supplement, include dietary components such as vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. The unique value of dietary supplement is particularly significant in the post-pandemic era. Compared to traditional medication, dietary supplement is often more readily accepted by the public due to their higher safety profile and the natural origin. By orally supplementing essential nutrients and bioactive substances, dietary supplement can help to enhance the body's health level and reduce the risk of diseases. For certain chronic conditions, proper dietary supplement can also serve as a powerful adjunct to conventional medical treatment, enhancing the effectiveness of medication.

Inflammasomes are classic pattern recognition receptors for natural immune responses. Inflammasomes are polymeric protein complexes that regulate inflammatory responses and pyrolytic cell death, thereby exerting the host's defense against microorganisms. Inflammasomes sensors are associated with adapter proteins, activating inflammatory caspase-1, releasing inflammatory cytokines and inducing cell death, endowing the host with defense against pathogens. NLRP1, NLRP3, NLRC4, AIM2, and pyrin are considered typical inflammasomes because they convert cysteine asparaginase-1 into catalytically active capsaicin-1. In addition to infectious diseases, the importance of inflammasomes is also related to various clinical diseases, such as autoimmune diseases, neurodegeneration and metabolic disorders, and the development of cancer. Therefore, it is necessary to strictly regulate the activation and function of inflammasomes to avoid accidental host tissue damage while inducing pathogens to kill the inflammatory response.

MCE designs a unique collection of 163 inflammasomes related compounds. It is a good tool to be used for research on Inflammation, cancer and other diseases.

Cosmetics are complex mixtures formulated through the rational blending and processing of various natural, synthetic, or extracted raw materials. The ingredients used in cosmetics are diverse in type and functionality. Based on their properties and applications, cosmetic ingredients can generally be classified into two main categories: base materials and auxiliary ingredients. The former constitutes the primary component of cosmetics, accounting for a significant proportion in formulations and serving as the key functional substances. Auxiliary ingredients, on the other hand, play roles in shaping the product, ensuring stability, or imparting color, fragrance, and other specific characteristics.Establishing a systematic ingredient database is of great significance for cosmetic research and development. By analyzing the physicochemical properties (such as oil-water partition coefficients and molecular weight distribution), biological activity mechanisms (such as antioxidant pathways and cellular signaling regulation), and compatibility of ingredients, the database can provide precise guidance for formulation design. This approach helps shorten the development cycle of cosmetic/skincare products and reduces trial-and-error costs.

MCE offers 622 types of cosmetic ingredient compounds, including antioxidants, humectants, emulsifiers, film-forming agents, and more.

An emerging drug design method is based on the secondary binding site effect, where small molecule drugs are designed to bind to secondary binding sites on target biomolecules rather than primary orthomorphic sites. Successful potential drugs (known as allosteric modulators) will be able to bind to allosteric sites and remotely alter (or modify) the conformation of the main orthosteric binding sites of biological targets. Allosteric modulators (AMs) are ligands of proteins that act through binding sites different from natural (orthosteric) ligand sites. AMs are relatively small, more lipophilic, and more rigid compounds. The binding efficacy of AMs with their targets is often slightly lower. AMs are divided into positive AMs (PAMs) and negative AMs (NAMs). AMs are ideal drug targets because they can fine-tune receptor activity while preserving the spatial and temporal signal transduction characteristics of endogenous ligands, resulting in fewer targeted side effects, improved subtype selectivity, and better promotion of biased signal transduction than normal ligands.

MCE designs a unique collection of 250 small allosteric modulators. It is a good tool to be used for research on metabolize, cancer and other diseases.

Liposomes are spherical or multilayered spherical vesicles formed by the self-assembly of diacyl chain phospholipids (lipid bilayers) in aqueous solutions, which can be made from natural or synthetic phospholipids and exhibit good biocompatibility and low toxicity. They can serve as delivery carriers for various bioactive substances (such as drugs, proteins, nucleic acids, etc.) and are widely used in biomedical and chemical research. The main advantages of liposomes include 1) Protective effect: Their bilayer structure can protect encapsulated molecules from enzymatic degradation, oxidation, and other influences, extending stability and activity; 2) Active targeting: Surface modifications enable active targeting, enhancing the concentration of drugs or molecules in specific tissues or cells; 3) Customizability: The composition and structure of liposomes can be adjusted according to needs, such as altering phospholipid types or adding targeting ligands. These properties make liposomes highly valuable in developing novel drug delivery systems, serving as nucleic acid carriers for gene transfection, studying cellular uptake mechanisms and drug release kinetics, as well as developing functional food additives to improve the bioavailability of nutritional components.

MCE contains 191 liposome compounds, which is a good tool for lipidomic-related studies.

Glycomimetics are designed to mimic the structure of natural carbohydrates and modulate their disease-related functions. Macrocyclic glycomimetics are an extremely interesting class of glycomimetics as they occupy space between small and macro molecules. Macrocyclic glycomimetics are mostly represented by naturally occurring molecules derived from marine microorganisms and bacterial or fungal metabolites.

Targeted Protein Degradation (TPD) is a novel and promising approach to drug development. It shows great potential for targeting proteins traditionally considered "undruggable" due to the lack of enzymatic function and absence of binding sites by tagging them for degradation or recruiting natural degradation mechanisms.

Molecular glues are a type of small-molecule degraders that primarily induce novel interactions between E3 ubiquitin ligases and target proteins, forming ternary complexes that lead to protein ubiquitination and subsequent proteasomal degradation. Compared with PROTACs, molecular glues generally have lower molecular weights, higher cell permeability, and better drug-like properties. Additionally, the design of molecular glues is relatively simple, without the requirements for complex linkers and ligand optimization. As a result, molecular glues have gradually emerged as a promising therapeutic approach for various diseases.

Multiple types of molecular glues have been reported previously. Analysis of co-crystal complex structures reveals that CRBN-related molecular glues are more versatile. Therefore, MCE researchers select active molecules related to these targets as probes for artificial intelligence (AI) screening.Subsequently, molecular docking technology was used to verify whether the screened molecules retained the key pharmacophore features. Ultimately, we obtained 317 molecular glue analogs, and these compounds serve as powerful tools for the research of molecular glues.

Bacteria-derived natural products have long been recognized as an important resource for innovative drug discovery due to their remarkable structural diversity and broad spectrum of biological activities. Microorganisms such as actinomycetes, Bacillus species, and marine bacteria can produce a wide range of small molecules with unique chemical scaffolds, showing extensive application potential in anti-infective, anticancer, immunomodulatory, and metabolic disease research. Many classic drugs, including Streptomycin, Tetracycline, and Doxorubicin, are derived from bacteria-related natural products.

“BioDesign” approach incorporates key structural features of known pharmacologically relevant natural products (e.g. alkaloids and other secondary metabolites) into synthetically feasible medicinal chemistry scaffolds. In order to identify the privileged pharmacophores, ring systems and linkers, we have carried out statistical analysis of structural features of natural products, marketed drugs, and drug candidates.

Saturated, fused ring, spiro, and bridged systems with a tendency towards multiple chiral centers are highly privileged among natural products and marketed drugs yet these structures are very poorly represented in commercial libraries. This library addressed this market need by incorporating these privileged elements into the design of novel synthetic molecules with high molecular framework diversity, multiple stereogenic centers (≥2), and degree of saturation (Fsp3 > 0.5).

Aging is an unavoidable process, leading to cell senescence due to physiochemical changes in an organism. Aging cells cease to divide and drive the progression of illness through various pathways, resulting in the death of an organism ultimately. Anti-aging activities are primarily involved in the therapies of age-related disorders such as Parkinson's Disease (PD), Alzheimer's Disease (AD), cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases.

Natural products are known as effective molecules in anti-aging treatments, which delay the aging process through influencing several pathways and thus ensure an extended lifespan. MCE offers a unique collection of 193 natural products with validated anti-aging activity. MCE anti-aging natural product library is a useful tool for the study of aging-related diseases drugs and pharmacology.