The strobilurin fungicides.
TL;DR: This review describes in detail the properties of the strobilurin active ingredients--their synthesis, biochemical mode of action, biokinetics, fungicidal activity, yield and quality benefits, resistance risk and human and environmental safety.
Abstract: Strobilurins are one of the most important classes of agricultural fungicide. Their invention was inspired by a group of fungicidally active natural products. The outstanding benefits they deliver are currently being utilised in a wide range of crops throughout the world. First launched in 1996, the strobilurins now include the world's biggest selling fungicide, azoxystrobin. By 2002 there will be six strobilurin active ingredients commercially available for agricultural use. This review describes in detail the properties of these active ingredients--their synthesis, biochemical mode of action, biokinetics, fungicidal activity, yield and quality benefits, resistance risk and human and environmental safety. It also describes the clear technical differences that exist between these active ingredients, particularly in the areas of fungicidal activity and biokinetics.
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TL;DR: The complex structure–activity relationships associated with biologically active molecules mean that the introduction of fluorine can lead to either an increase or a decrease in the efficacy of a compound depending on its changed mode of action, physicochemical properties, target interaction, or metabolic susceptibility and transformation.
Abstract: The task of inventing and developing active ingredients with useful biological activities requires a search for novel chemical substructures. This process may trigger the discovery of whole classes of chemicals of potential commercial interest. Similar biological effects can often be achieved by completely different compounds. However, compounds within a given structural family may exhibit quite different biological activities depending on their interactions with different intracellular proteins like enzymes or receptors. By varying the functional groups and structural elements of a lead compound, its interaction with the active site of the target protein, as well as its physicochemical, pharmacokinetic, and dynamic properties can be improved. In this context, the introduction of fluorine into active ingredients has become an important concept in the quest for a modern crop protection product with optimal efficacy, environmental safety, user friendliness, and economic viability. Fluorinated organic compounds represent an important and growing family of commercial agrochemicals. A number of recently developed agrochemical candidates represent novel classes of chemical compounds with new modes of action; several of these compounds contain new fluorinated substituents. However, the complex structure-activity relationships associated with biologically active molecules mean that the introduction of fluorine can lead to either an increase or a decrease in the efficacy of a compound depending on its changed mode of action, physicochemical properties, target interaction, or metabolic susceptibility and transformation. Therefore, it is still difficult to predict the sites in a molecule at which fluorine substitution will result in optimal desired effects.
1,024 citations
TL;DR: This review covers recent advances in disclosing molecular mechanisms of priming, which include elevated levels of pattern-recognition receptors and dormant signaling enzymes, transcription factor HsfB1 activity, and alterations in chromatin state.
Abstract: When plants recognize potential opponents, invading pathogens, wound signals, or abiotic stress, they often switch to a primed state of enhanced defense. However, defense priming can also be induced by some natural or synthetic chemicals. In the primed state, plants respond to biotic and abiotic stress with faster and stronger activation of defense, and this is often linked to immunity and abiotic stress tolerance. This review covers recent advances in disclosing molecular mechanisms of priming. These include elevated levels of pattern-recognition receptors and dormant signaling enzymes, transcription factor HsfB1 activity, and alterations in chromatin state. They also comprise the identification of aspartyl-tRNA synthetase as a receptor of the priming activator β-aminobutyric acid. The article also illustrates the inheritance of priming, exemplifies the role of recently identified priming activators azelaic and pipecolic acid, elaborates on the similarity to defense priming in mammals, and discusses the ...
634 citations
TL;DR: The environmental and toxicological hazards associated with the extensive use of fungicides should be performed carefully according to the physico-chemical properties of the soils and climatic and hydrogeological characteristics of the vine-growing regions.
626 citations
Cites background from "The strobilurin fungicides."
..., 2000; Bartlett et al., 2002). Azoxystrobin is stable in the pH range of 4–9 and is degraded only slowly by photolysis (FAO, 2007). Ghosh and Singh (2009) have shown that photodegradation plays an important role in its degradation....
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...Azoxystrobin belongs to a new class of widely-sold systemic fungicides called strobilurins, fungicides originating from natural products (Gullino et al., 2000; Bartlett et al., 2002)....
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TL;DR: Recent advances in understanding of resistance mechanisms of phytopathogenic fungi to some major classes of fungicides at a molecular level and developments in molecular detection of fungicide-resistant fungi are reviewed.
502 citations
TL;DR: Recent advances in the understanding of the mechanism of the bc1 complex and their relation to physiologically important issues are reviewed in the context of the structural information available.
Abstract: ▪ Abstract The bc 1 complexes are intrinsic membrane proteins that catalyze the oxidation of ubihydroquinone and the reduction of cytochrome c in mitochondrial respiratory chains and bacterial photosynthetic and respiratory chains. The bc 1 complex operates through a Q-cycle mechanism that couples electron transfer to generation of the proton gradient that drives ATP synthesis. Genetic defects leading to mutations in proteins of the respiratory chain, including the subunits of the bc 1 complex, result in mitochondrial myopathies, many of which are a direct result of dysfunction at catalytic sites. Some myopathies, especially those in the cytochrome b subunit, exacerbate free-radical damage by enhancing superoxide production at the ubihydroquinone oxidation site. This bypass reaction appears to be an unavoidable feature of the reaction mechanism. Cellular aging is largely attributable to damage to DNA and proteins from the reactive oxygen species arising from superoxide and is a major contributing factor i...
461 citations
References
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TL;DR: X-ray crystal structures of the cytochrome bc1 complex from chicken, cow and rabbit in both the presence and absence of inhibitors of quinone oxidation, reveal two different locations for the extrinsic domain of one component of the enzyme, an iron–sulphur protein.
Abstract: The cytochrome bc1 is one of the three major respiratory enzyme complexes residing in the inner mitochondrial membrane. Cytochrome bc1 transfers electrons from ubiquinol to cytochrome c and uses the energy thus released to form an electrochemical gradient across the inner membrane. Our X-ray crystal structures of the complex from chicken, cow and rabbit in both the presence and absence of inhibitors of quinone oxidation, reveal two different locations for the extrinsic domain of one component of the enzyme, an iron-sulphur protein. One location is close enough to the supposed quinol oxidation site to allow reduction of the Fe-S protein by ubiquinol. The other site is close enough to cytochrome c1 to allow oxidation of the Fe-S protein by the cytochrome. As neither location will allow both reactions to proceed at a suitable rate, the reaction mechanism must involve movement of the extrinsic domain of the Fe-S component in order to shuttle electrons from ubiquinol to cytochrome c1. Such a mechanism has not previously been observed in redox protein complexes.
1,009 citations
TL;DR: The approach to crystallize membrane proteins as complexes with specific antibody fragments appears to be of general importance and reveals in detail the binding sites of the natural substrate coenzyme Q6 and the inhibitor stigmatellin.
570 citations
TL;DR: A fungus that grows on pinecones yields a compound with antifungal activity that has become the natural model for a significant innovation in crop protection and is a fascinating success story.
Abstract: A fungus that grows on pinecones yields a compound with antifungal activity that has become the natural model for a significant innovation in crop protection. Variation and optimization of the lead structure of strobilurin A (1) and selection of derivatives which fulfill all practical requirements, for example, kresoxim-methyl (2), led to an exciting and pan-industrial competition for the development of the strobilurines as a new, highly active, and broadly applicable class of fungicides—a fascinating success story.
297 citations
TL;DR: In a series of biotests including heterotrophic maize and photoautotrophic algal cell suspensions, duckweed, isolated mustard shoots and germinating cress seeds, strobilurin kresoxim-methyl (BAS 490 F) was found to induce physiological and developmental alterations in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) which are seen in connection with improved yield as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Apart from its fungicidal effect, the strobilurin kresoxim-methyl (BAS 490 F) was found to induce physiological and developmental alterations in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) which are seen in connection with improved yield. In a series of biotests including heterotrophic maize and photoautotrophic algal cell suspensions, duckweed, isolated mustard shoots and germinating cress seeds, kresoxim-methyl showed a similar response pattern to standard auxins (e.g. indol-3-ylacetic acid, IAA; 2-(1-naphthyl)acetic acid, α-NAA). Auxin-like activity of kresoxim-methyl was also found when stem explants of tobacco were cultured on a hormone-free medium. Kresoxim-methyl stimulated shoot formation, particularly at 10 -7 M. The same effect was induced by 10 -8 M IAA. The determination of phytohormone-like substances in shoots of wheat plants foliar-treated with 7 x 10 -4 M kresoxim-methyl revealed only slightly changed levels of endogenous IAA, gibberellins and abscisic acid. In contrast, the contents of dihydrozeatin riboside-type cytokinins increased to 160% of the control, while transzeatin riboside- and isopentenyladenosine-type cytokinins remained nearly unchanged. The most remarkable alterations were the reductions in 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) levels and ethylene formation which were demonstrated in intact plants, leaf discs and the shoots of wheat subjected to drought stress. Kresoxim-methyl affected the induction of ACC synthase activity which converts S-adenosyl-methionine to ACC in ethylene biosynthesis. In shoots from foliar-treated wheat plants, 10 -4 M kresoxim-methyl inhibited stress-induced increases in endogenous ACC synthase activity, ACC levels and ethylene formation by approximately 50%. Reductions in ACC synthase activity and ACC levels of 30% were also obtained at low concentrations of α-NAA (10 -6 M). In contrast, ACC synthase activity in vitro was not influenced by adding the compounds. In wheat leaf discs, the inhibiting effect of kresoxim-methyl, α-NAA and IAA on ethylene formation was accompanied by delayed leaf senescence, characterized by reduced chlorophyll loss. However, in contrast to kresoxim-methyl which showed only inhibitory activity on ethylene synthesis over a wide range of concentrations applied, the auxins stimulated ethylene production at high concentrations of about 10 -4 M. The inhibition of ethylene biosynthesis by kresoxim-methyl, together with an increase in endogenous cytokinins could explain the retardation of senescence and the intensified green leaf pigmentation in wheat exposed to this strobilurin.
249 citations
TL;DR: The inhibitory action and binding characteristics of the new anti-fungal antibiotic myxothiazol has been described and a red shift of the ferrocytochrome b spectrum is indicated, independent of and differs from the antimycin red shift.
232 citations