Microfluidic strategies for natural products in drug discovery: Current status and future perspectives

Natural products are still the principal source of drug candidates or leading compounds in new drug discovery. It is an important challenge to innovate and construct a rapid and efficient research system of natural products. Microfluidic technology can miniaturize the analytical process such as sample pretreatment, reaction, separation and detection onto a single chip with multichannel. It is particularly suitable for the analysis and screening of trace natural products, with the benefits of rapid analysis, high information content, and low fabrication cost. This review comprehensively summarized the natural products-related design of the microfluidic device and the typical applications in the analysis, activity/toxicity evaluation, ADME study of natural products. We also discussed the limitations and challenges in previous studies. Finally, we proposed future research directions, development trends and potential applications of microfluidic device in natural products research.