Natural products targeting strategies involving molecular networking: different manners, one goal

Landmark advances in bioinformatics tools have recently enhanced the field of natural products research, putting today's natural product chemists in the enviable position of being able to perform the efficient targeting/discovery of previously undescribed molecules by expediting the prioritization of the isolation workflow. Among these advances, MS/ MS molecular networking has appeared as a promising approach to dereplicate complex natural product mixtures, leading to a real revolution in the art of natural product isolation by accelerating the pace of research of this field. This review illustrates through selected cornerstone studies the new thinking in natural product isolation by drawing a parallel between the different underlying philosophies behind the use of molecular networking in targeting natural products.