Compound-centered drugs are often isolated from what sources?

• A. Plants, molds, or other organisms
• B. Synthetic chemical libraries
• C. Animal tissues
• D. Mineral ores

Answer: (A)

The idea being tested is where many compound-centered drug leads come from. Natural products—chemical compounds produced by living organisms—are a rich source of diverse, complex structures that have evolved to interact with biology. Plants, molds, and other organisms routinely generate small molecules with unique ring systems, stereochemistry, and functional groups that are hard to replicate from scratch. This makes them prime candidates for isolation, characterization, and optimization into drugs. Synthetic libraries are useful for exploring chemical space, but they aren’t “isolated from” natural sources. Animal tissues or mineral ores aren’t the broad, typical sources used for this approach. So the best source is plants, molds, or other organisms.