Plants of the winter wheat cv. Bounty were inoculated with Septoria nodorum and then assayed for ergosterol. A detached leaf technique was used in which leaf segments were incubated on agar containing benzimidazole. Four levels of a conidial suspension inoculum were applied using a measured droplet technique. Ergosterol in plant extracts was measured using HPLC and its identity confirmed by co-injection with pure ergosterol as an internal standard. The extracts were also assayed by silica-gel thin layer chromatography with the sterol being visualised with rhodamine; the presence of ergosterol in the material from the two higher disease level treatments was confirmed by analysing the eluted spots in a spectrophotometer. Additional confirmation of ergosterol was obtained using gas-liquid chromatography comparing a mixture of known plant sterols with a sample from the diseased leaf tissue.The ergosterol assay was found to be very sensitive and offers a high level of reproducibility. It would therefore appear that such assays could be of value in breeding programmes when it is necessary to screen wheat cultivars for their reaction to S . nodorum or other fungal pathogens.
In spite of considerable efforts by many workers, there has been a lack of progress in the area of amine fungicides since fenpropimorph. Random synthesis of a large variety of different amine compounds, as well as intelligent structural modification of the lead structure fenpropimorph (well over 15 000 amines have been screened at BASF alone) have not led to a new market product so far. Further work has been focused on the reported mode of action of fenpropimorph, notably on the inhibition of the sterol Δ14‐reductase. Although some doubt has to be cast on the hypothesis that fenpropimorph behaves as a sterol mimic, the concept of ‘high energy intermediate’ inhibitors has been employed successfully. Rational drug design of azasterol mimics has led to a number of very potent inhibitors of the sterol Δ14‐reductase which also displayed high fungicidal activity in the greenhouse. Although many of these compounds are more powerful reductase inhibitors than fenpropimorph, under field conditions none showed significant advantages over this established fungicide.
Most likely, fenpropimorph already exhibits the maximum fungicidal activity which can be attained by blocking the sterol Δ14‐reductase. This would mean that, with the development of the ‘second generation’ amine fungicide fenpropimorph, this class of compounds has already virtually been optimized.
Much discussion has focused upon the concept that a 'rational', molecular biology-based strategy could revolutionize pesticide discovery. The personal viewpoint presented here is that such a concept is fundamentally flawed because it is based on false assumptions about the extent to which biological systems are genetically determined. It is argued that, even at the very low level of biological complexity represented by the structures and functions of individual proteins, the predictive capacity of molecular biology remains too weak to form a reliable basis for industrial research strategy, even when coupled with almost unlimited computing power. Expectations that molecular genetics could somehow speed up the discovery process and replace other methods of enquiry may thus be overoptimistic and an awareness of its limitations is essential to avoid the wasteful allocation of research resources. This article aims to highlight some of the limitations of which those who are not actively engaged in molecular biology may be unaware and which some of those who are so engaged may choose to ignore. Comments and counter-arguments are actively invited.
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