Linking neuroethology to the chemical biology of natural products: interactions between cone snails and their fish prey, a case study.
From a biological perspective, a natural product can be defined as a compound evolved by an organism for chemical interactions with another organism including prey, predator, competitor, pathogen, symbiont or host. Natural products hold tremendous potential as drug leads and have been extensively studied by chemists and biochemists in the pharmaceutical industry. However, the biological purpose for which a natural product evolved is rarely addressed. By focusing on a well-studied group of natural products-venom components from predatory marine cone snails-this review provides a rationale for why a better understanding of the evolution, biology and biochemistry of natural products will facilitate both neuroscience and the potential for drug leads. The larger goal is to establish a new sub-discipline in the broader field of neuroethology that we refer to as "Chemical Neuroethology", linking the substantial work carried out by chemists on natural products with accelerating advances in neuroethology.
['Olivera|Baldomero M|BM|http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4556-1410', 'Raghuraman|Shrinivasan|S|', 'Schmidt|Eric W|EW|', 'Safavi-Hemami|Helena|H|']
D000818:Animals D005075:Biological Evolution D001688:Biological Products D052078:Conus Snail D005399:Fishes D011235:Predatory Behavior
Natural products Chemical neuroethology Cone snail venom Toxin cabals