Natural product analogues: towards a blueprint for analogue-focused synthesis.

For the first time a general overview of approaches to the synthesis of natural product analogues is presented. This reflects a process of evolution of natural product synthesis which has accelerated in the years since the implementation of diversity-oriented synthesis, which has emerged in parallel with collective synthesis, diverted total synthesis and the preparation of truncated natural products optimised for biological activity. A method involving computational assessment for the validation of core-modified natural product analogues is discussed.