Bioautography and its scope in the field of natural product chemistry

Medicinal plants, vegetables and fruits are the sources of huge number of bioactive lead/scaffolds with therapeutic and nutraceutical importance. Bioautography is a means of target-directed isolation of active molecules on chromatogram. Organic solvents employed in chromatographic separation process can be completely removed before biological detection because these solvents cause inactivation of enzymes and/or death of living organisms. They offer a rapid and easy identification of bioactive lead/scaffolds in complex matrices of plant extracts. Bioautography is a technique to isolate hit(s)/lead(s) by employing a suitable chromatographic process followed by a biological detection system. This review critically describes the methodologies to identify antimicrobial, antioxidant, enzyme inhibitor lead/scaffolds by employing bioautography. A significant number of examples have been incorporated to authenticate the methodologies.