Talk:Natural product

Merging with German entry?

There is no entry for this page in German (strangely, since that is where this field originates). An unrelated, shorter page for Naturstoffchemie Q683834 (translation: Natural product chemistry") exists in German that is not linked here. In English, "Natural product chemistry" redirects to "Natural product" (as I believe is appropriate). I was not able to merge these automatically due to a conflict in the Russian versions of the two pages, so I was not sure how to proceed. I have opened an Interwiki conflict entry on this, but I wanted to post it here as well in case someone knows how to solve it. ChemBioRachel (talk) 18:20, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Comments on the article from an LLM hunter

The lead seems self-contradictory: first natural products are produced by life, then they can also be synthesized.

I can't see all of source 7, but it doesn't seem to support what it's cited for.

End of second paragraph is unsourced.

What does "natural sources" mean in para 3? How can a source lead to research?

The first sentence in Classes is confusing and weird--the classes don't seem comparable. "Biotic material" just seems to mean "something that came from living organisms" so it includes bodily fluids and coal. Anyway, what are these classes being listed for?

The word "source" is being used to mean "origin of a natural product" and "work being cited" (second para of Classes) and this is confusing.

What is the second para under function adding, especially its first sentence?

Why does the article define primary and secondary metabolites so many times? It seems to be wandering far away from natural products.

What is the huge detail in the Primary Metabolites section adding to the understanding of natural products? About half the time this article seems to be saying primary metabolites should not even count as natural products.

Just spot-checking after this, but the last two sentences of the article do nothing at all.

There is a lot of stuff here and some is quite interesting, but it's not focused at all, parts are very repetitious, the level of detail varies wildly, and there are some statements that seem unlikely to be correct.

I think there is also a big thing missing, which is comparing/contrasting "natural product" and other terms that are similar, such as "organic" and "biotic."

I am going to give a painful piece of advice, which is that it is often easier to throw away the LLM text and start clean, using the better sources from the previous version. I have tried fixing LLM articles several times and it is a huge amount of work. With an article as long as this I frankly wouldn't know how to begin. M kuhner (talk) 05:49, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

@M kuhner: Thanks for your comments. I am 100% certain that all the sources in this article are both real and relevant. The potential problem is not the sources, it is the text. Also for reference this version should be clear of any LLM generated text. The sections that were added or expand after that last "good" version were "Biomimetic synthesis", "Peptides, proteins, and other amino acid derivatives", "Alkaloids", "Terpenoids and steroids", and "Aromatic amino acids and phenylpropanoids". I have condensed these sections to the bare minimum and intend to re-expand them manually. What I am interested is knowing if there are any residual signs of AI in these sections. The rest of your points are relevant and appreciated, but I believe are more directed at bringing this article to GA status than cleanup of LLM generated text. Boghog (talk) 17:26, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Point by point replies:

• The lead seems self-contradictory: first natural products are produced by life, then they can also be synthesized.

Two things can be true at once. By definition, natural products are produced by life, but they can also be synthesized in the laboratory. I don't see this as contradictory.

• I can't see all of source 7, but it doesn't seem to support what it's cited for.

Are you refering to Hanson (2003)? You should be able to see page 1 of that book with starts with general definitions of primary and secondary metabolites, which I think supports the statement "Within the field of organic chemistry, the definition of natural products is usually restricted to organic compounds isolated from natural sources that are produced by the pathways of primary or secondary metabolism." Perhaps it would be closer to the source and more accurate to say that "natural products refers to an organic small molecule that is produced by a living organism, typically as a product of primary or secondary metabolism".

• End of second paragraph is unsourced.

PMID 32636341 comes pretty close

• there are some statements that seem unlikely to be correct.

Can you name a few?

• What is the huge detail in the Primary Metabolites section adding to the understanding of natural products? About half the time this article seems to be saying primary metabolites should not even count as natural products.

First of all, there is a difference in opinion on whether primary metabolites are natural products. Some do consider primary metabolites as natural products, so a discussion of primary metabolites is appropriate. In addition, secondary metabolites in many cases are synthesized from primary metabolites and use many of the same types of reactions. In essence, secondary metabolite synthesis is an extension of primary metabolite synthesis. If you want to understand how secondary metabolites are biosynthesized, you need to start with the biosynthesis of primary metabolites.

• the last two sentences of the article do nothing at all.

Are you refering to: "These pioneering studies laid the foundation for our understanding of natural product chemistry and biochemistry,[165] leading to numerous Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Physiology or Medicine. The field of natural products has continued to evolve, with recent research focusing on the evolutionary and ecological roles of these compounds.[30]" Yes, this is fluff that could be trimmed. Boghog (talk) 18:18, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I guess I am just not getting a clear read on what this article is about. It could be about multiple different things but if so it needs to clearly separate them early on and deal with each in turn.

(1) Organic compounds originally produced by life processes. (You're right, the fact that they can be synthesized doesn't change their definition.)

(2) The subclass of (1) that are secondary metabolites, which tend to be particularly important in drug development.

(3) Commercial products which can be labeled as "natural."

(3) seems like mainly a distraction. In the US at least this term has no legal meaning and is mainly puffery as far as I can tell. You cite it to an industry advocacy group, not exactly a reliable source. If (3) is not what this article is about, I would dismiss it in one brief sentence, ideally pointing to a different page that talks about the commercial meaning of "natural product." Possibly Natural food would be the right page, though not all of them are foods.

For the case of reference 7, it's being cited to support this: Within the field of organic chemistry, the definition of natural products is usually restricted to organic compounds isolated from natural sources that are produced by the pathways of primary or secondary metabolism. The part of source 7 I can see says there are three classes--the third is not visible, unfortunately--and doesn't support the idea that it's restricted to primary or secondary metabolites as far as I can tell. (If you have access to the book, can you put the rest of that paragraph on this Talk page? That would really help.)

The whole section "Classes" seems fairly pointless. Numbers here are meaningless as we don't know if they are (1) or (2).

Why does the start of Function re-explain the difference between primary and secondary? It's repetitious and unnecessary. And then next paragraph does it again? This, right here, is where I would stop as a Wikipedia reader, and say to myself "This article is no good."

Top of Primary metabolites and Secondary metabolites repeat those brief definitions again.

Then in the Synthesis section suddenly this distinction, which has seemed to be very important, disappears: primary are not separated from secondary at all here, or for the rest of the article.

The Sources section reads strongly as LLM with a lot of empty phrases and some puffery.

"Microorganisms, plants and animals" -- but a page later you lead off with fungi, which are not plants or animals, and many are not microorganisms.

In the Archaea section, what is that bit about novel chemical compounds doing? Are these natural products, or not? If not, why are they here? Also, what use is that list of enzymes?

I'm sorry, this is probably very frustrating for you. But LLM text is like plastic fruit: it looks great and then when you bite into it, there's nothing there. I normally recommend cutting down to a stub and building back up with human text and sources that you've read. (Have you read source 7, or are you working from that little snippet in the picture?) M kuhner (talk) 20:54, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi. I would encourage you to reread what I wrote above, particularly my comments about the last "good" version of the article. I did not write the "Sources" section. In fact, that entire section was written long before LLMs became widely available. Are your concerns based on the output of an LLM detection tool, or are they based on your own assessment? I think we are mixing up two separate issues: (1) the issue of LLM-generated content, and (2) the Good Article nomination. It would be much more efficient to address one issue at a time. For now, I would ask that you focus only on the following sections with respect to the LLM question: "Biomimetic synthesis", "Peptides, proteins, and other amino acid derivatives", "Alkaloids", "Terpenoids and steroids", and "Aromatic amino acids and phenylpropanoids". The remaining sections are not relevant to the LLM issue. Boghog (talk) 21:49, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Okay, that's fair. I did not examine the pre-LLM version but was just giving comments about the article. I will focus on the sections you mention.

In Biomimetic synthesis:

Source 138 is cited to support Biomimetic synthesis typically employs reactions such Diels–Alder, photocycloadditions, cyclizations, and oxidative and free radical transformations.

The Abstract of 138 says using bioinspired methods, including Diels-Alder dimerization, photocycloaddition, cyclization, and oxidative and radical reactions, which will provide an easy access to precursors for biomimetic reactions.

I have some concerns here. The source says these are bioinspired methods which provide precursors of biomimetic rections, while the article says they are biomimetic. I don't think a radical reaction and a free radical transformation are actually the same thing, though I am not a biochemist and I'm not 100% sure. Also the paraphrase is very close.

In Peptides, proteins, and other amino acid derivatives:

This section looks like a bunch of unrelated topics and sentences. The second sentence looks as though it came from somewhere else (why "in turn"?) A statement about "physiology and metabolism" is cited to a source about "love and fear"--not a good match. A statement about the role of cyanogenic glycosides in plant defense is cited to two sources, one of which is about arthropods.

In Alkaloids:

What is "well known" doing in here?

Big problem: That graphic is sourced as "own work" by you, but it is from reference 50. The reference has an appropriate license, so this can be used, but it is NOT "own work"--you must credit the creators! (Unless you are an author of 50, of course, but I think it would be a really good idea to clarify that if so.)

In Terpenoids and steroids:

Same issue with the graphic.

Why is there a one element bulleted list?

How are statins relevant to the topic of this section? More important, I don't see statins mentioned in reference 44. There is one passing mention of a compound with "-statin" in its name but nothing about their activity or synthesis.

Reference 45 is a 404 dead link for me.

What does "diversity terpenoid structures" mean?

In Aromatic amino acids and phenylpropanoids:

Again, why a one element bulleted list?

The sentences starting "Phenylalanine, tyrosine" and "In plants, phenylalanine" give two different statements about how these are synthesized--how are those reconciled? Why is the second one marked "in plants" but the first one, also in plants, is not?

Conclusion: The serious issues are two graphics not credited to their creators, a dead link, and at least three statements which don't match up with sources. M kuhner (talk) 22:51, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I asked for an evaluation of potential LLM contributions, but what I got is a Good Article evaluation. So do you now agree that there are no LLM issues? Please note that I have stripped these sections down to the bare minimum so that many of the issues that you raised will be addressed through normal copyedit. I will stick to the most important issues that you raised. First concerning not crediting the authors. From a purely copyright standpoint, copyright cannot be used to control underlying scientific facts or chemical drawing conventions. I redrew the figures from scratch and they don't resemble the originals except for the underlying biosynthetic pathway. This is fair use and is my own work. I have provided a citation in the article to support that the reaction pathway is correct. I have now also added "inspired by Figure X in ..." to the two figures.

Dead link is fixed.

Strictly speaking, a reaction and transformation are closely related but not quite the same thing, the former includes a mechanism, whereas the later is irrespective of the mechanism. Will adjust. Boghog (talk) 00:53, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Not doing a Good Article. Just looking for source/text mismatch, broken sources, and LLM tics in writing. (Well, probably I overstepped, I'm sorry. My mother was an English lit professor; copy-editing is in my blood.)

Thanks for crediting the pictures. I didn't realize you redrew them, but it is still a courtesy.

What about the source/text mismatches? Why is a statement about glycosides in plant defense sourced to an article about arthropods? What about the sourcing for statins to an article that does not discuss statins? How does the "love and fear" article support "physiology and metabolism"? M kuhner (talk) 01:41, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the explanation of what you are looking for. In response to the questions that you have raised:

• Why is a statement about glycosides in plant defense sourced to an article about arthropods?

Zagrobelny (2018) review does center on arthropods, but also includes a section specifically about plants: 5. Cyanogenic Glucosides in Food Plants. Furthermore the section that cites Zagrobelny could be expanded to also include arthropods, in which the citation would serve a dual purpose. Expanded to arthropods in this edit.

• What about the sourcing for statins to an article that does not discuss statins?

Agreed that Bergman (2019) does not mention statins. Good catch. A far more relevant source would be Statin Medications which covers both the mechanism of action and therapeutic use. Done in this edit

• How does the "love and fear" article support "physiology and metabolism"?

The Carter (2017) review does focus on “The Oxytocin‑Vasopressin Pathway in the Context of Love and Fear” but also briefly discusses the broader physiological roles of these peptides. But I would agree that this far from an ideal reference to support "physiology and metabolism". PMID 34768894 (cardiovascular roles) and PMID 38418338 (wider roles) together would be better. Implemented in this edit. Boghog (talk) 06:35, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

• Source 138

The following sentence would be closer to the Shakour (2024) source and removes the close paraphrasing: Synthetic strategies inspired by natural biosynthetic pathways often employ transformations such as cyclizations, Diels–Alder cycloadditions, photochemical cycloadditions, and oxidative and free radical processes to construct complex natural products. Boghog (talk) 08:53, 12 July 2026 (UTC)