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Emerging Trends in Pesticides Discovery Based on Natural Products
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Emerging Trends in Pesticides Discovery Based on Natural Products

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Natural Products Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 4805

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Ziwen Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Structure and Performance for Functional Molecules, College of Chemistry, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387, China
Interests: natural products; botanical pesticides; total synthesis; pesticide lead discovery; plant disease and pest control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Natural products (NPs) are animal or plant metabolites which have the advantages of biocompatibility, structural diversity, and unique mechanism. The discovery of new leads based on natural products is an important way to innovate pesticides. However, due to the low natural abundance and structural complexity of many bioactive natural products, most cannot be used as pesticides directly. Total synthesis and structural simplification by truncating unnecessary substructures are powerful strategies for overcoming these limitations and improving the efficiency and success rate of NP-based pesticide development.

In this Special Issue, we invite researchers to contribute original research or review articles on topics related to all aspects of natural lead compounds in NP-based pesticide discovery and development, including but not limited to the discovery of natural lead compounds, total synthesis, structural modification and activity evaluation of natural leads, structure–activity relationships, mechanism study and target identification, biogenic nanopesticides, etc.

Dr. Ziwen Wang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • natural products
  • total synthesis
  • structural simplification
  • pesticide lead discovery
  • plant disease and pest control
  • structure–activity relationship
  • mechanism study
  • target identification

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 1576 KiB  
Article
Design, Synthesis and Various Bioactivity of Acylhydrazone-Containing Matrine Analogues
by Wanjun Ni, Hongjian Song, Lizhong Wang, Yuxiu Liu and Qingmin Wang
Molecules 2023, 28(10), 4163; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28104163 - 18 May 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1252
Abstract
Compounds with acylhydrazone fragments contain amide and imine groups that can act as electron donors and acceptors, so they are easier to bind to biological targets and thus generally exhibit significant biological activity. In this work, acylhydrazone fragments were introduced to the C-14 [...] Read more.
Compounds with acylhydrazone fragments contain amide and imine groups that can act as electron donors and acceptors, so they are easier to bind to biological targets and thus generally exhibit significant biological activity. In this work, acylhydrazone fragments were introduced to the C-14 or C-11 position of matrine, a natural alkaloid, aiming to enhance their biological activities. The result of this bioassay showed that many synthesized compounds exhibited excellent anti-virus activity against the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). Seventeen out of 25 14-acylhydrazone matrine derivatives and 17 out of 20 11-butanehydrazone matrine derivatives had a higher inhibitory activity against TMV than the commercial antiviral agent Ribavirin (the in vitro activity, in vivo inactivation, curative and protection activities at 500 µg/mL were 40.9, 36.5 ± 0.9, 38.0 ± 1.6 and 35.1 ± 2.2%, respectively), and four 11-butanehydrazone matrine derivatives even had similar to or higher activity than the most efficient antiviral agent Ningnanmycin (55.4, 57.8 ± 1.4, 55.3 ± 0.5 and 60.3 ± 1.2% at 500 µg/mL for the above four test modes). Among them, the N-benzyl-11-butanehydrazone of matrine formed with 4-bromoindole-3-carboxaldehyde exhibited the best anti-TMV activity (65.8, 71.8 ± 2.8, 66.8 ± 1.3 and 69.5 ± 3.1% at 500 µg/mL; 29, 33.5 ± 0.7, 24.1 ± 0.2 and 30.3 ± 0.6% at 100 µg/mL for the above four test modes), deserving further investigation as an antiviral agent. Other than these, the two series of acylhydrazone-containing matrine derivatives were evaluated for their insecticidal and fungicidal activities. Several compounds were found to have good insecticidal activities against diamondback moth (Plutella xylostella) and mosquito larvae (Culex pipiens pallens), showing broad biological activities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Trends in Pesticides Discovery Based on Natural Products)
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15 pages, 3963 KiB  
Article
Discovery of a Novel Class of Acylthiourea-Containing Isoxazoline Insecticides against Plutella xylostella
by Fangyi Li, Biaobiao Jiang, Yuqin Luo, Siqi He, Di Feng, Deyu Hu and Runjiang Song
Molecules 2023, 28(8), 3300; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28083300 - 07 Apr 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1841
Abstract
Isoxazoline structures are widely found in natural products and are rich in biological activities. This study discloses the development of a series of novel isoxazoline derivatives by introducing acylthiourea fragments to access insecticidal activity. All synthetic compounds were examined for their insecticidal activity [...] Read more.
Isoxazoline structures are widely found in natural products and are rich in biological activities. This study discloses the development of a series of novel isoxazoline derivatives by introducing acylthiourea fragments to access insecticidal activity. All synthetic compounds were examined for their insecticidal activity against Plutella xylostella, with results showing moderate to strong activity. Based on this, the structure–activity relationship analysis was carried out via the constructed three-dimensional quantitative structure–activity relationship model to further guide the structure optimization, resulting in the optimal compound 32. The LC50 of compound 32 against Plutella xylostella was 0.26 mg/L, demonstrating better activity than the positive control, ethiprole (LC50 = 3.81 mg/L), avermectin (LC50 = 12.32 mg/L), and compounds 1–31. The insect GABA enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay demonstrated that compound 32 might act on the insect GABA receptor, and the molecular docking assay further illustrated the mode of action of compound 32 with the GABA receptor. In addition, the proteomics analysis indicated that the action of compound 32 on Plutella xylostella was multi-pathway. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Trends in Pesticides Discovery Based on Natural Products)
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12 pages, 2800 KiB  
Article
Discovery of Barakacin and Its Derivatives as Novel Antiviral and Fungicidal Agents
by Yongyue Gao, Xingxing He, Lili Yan, Hongyu Zhang, Sijia Liu, Qian Ma, Peiyao Zhang, Yan Zhang, Zijun Zhang, Ziwen Wang, Aidang Lu and Qingmin Wang
Molecules 2023, 28(7), 3032; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28073032 - 29 Mar 2023
Viewed by 1360
Abstract
Pesticides are essential for the development of agriculture. It is urgent to develop green, safe and efficient pesticides. Bisindole alkaloids have unique and concise structures and broad biological activities, which make them an important leading skeleton in the creation of new pesticides. In [...] Read more.
Pesticides are essential for the development of agriculture. It is urgent to develop green, safe and efficient pesticides. Bisindole alkaloids have unique and concise structures and broad biological activities, which make them an important leading skeleton in the creation of new pesticides. In this work, we synthesized bisindole alkaloid barakacin in a simple seven-step process, and simultaneously designed and synthesized a series of its derivatives. Biological activity research indicated that most of these compounds displayed good antiviral activities against tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). Among them, compound 14b exerted a superior inhibitory effect in comparison to commercially available antiviral agent ribavirin, and could be expected to become a novel antiviral candidate. Molecular biology experiments and molecular docking research found that the potential target of compound 14b was TMV coat protein (CP). These compounds also showed broad-spectrum anti-fungal activities against seven kinds of plant fungi. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Trends in Pesticides Discovery Based on Natural Products)
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