Natural Product-Based Crop Protection Compounds─Origins and Future Prospects

Abstract

The continuing need to protect food and fiber production to address the demands of an expanding global population requires new pest management tools for crop protection. Natural products (NPs) have been and continue to be a key source of inspiration for new active ingredients (AIs) for crop protection, accounting for 17% of all crop protection AIs. However, potentially 50% of all crop protection compounds have or could have a NP origin if NP synthetic equivalents (NPSEs, synthetic compounds discovered by other approaches but for which a NP model also happens to exist) are also considered. The real and hypothetical NPs have their greatest impact as insight for new classes of crop protection compounds. Among the different product areas, NPs have their largest influence on the discovery of new insecticides, while herbicides have been the least affected by mining NPs for new AIs. While plants have historically been the largest (60% of the total) source of NPs of AIs for crop protection, in the last 30 years, bacterial NPs have become the largest source (42% of the total) of new classes (first in class) of NP-inspired crop protection AIs. Interest in NPs for crop protection continues, an aspect that is highlighted by the notable rise in the numbers of publications and patents on this topic, especially in the last 20 years. The present analysis further illustrates the continuing interest and value in NPs as sources of and inspiration for new classes of crop protection compounds.

Synthesis and Antifungal Activity of Derivatives of the Natural Product Griseofulvin against Phytopathogenic Fungi

“…The mixture was stirred at 100 °C for 30 min, cooled to 0 °C, and saturated aqueous Na 2 CO 3 was added carefully to the solution until achieving a slightly basic pH 7–8. The aqueous phase was extracted with CH 2 Cl 2 (3 × 20 mL), and the combined organic phases were dried (MgSO 4 ) and concentrated. , The residue was purified by column chromatography (CH 2 Cl 2 ) and the desired products 11 and 12 were obtained.…”

“…The aqueous phase was extracted with CH 2 Cl 2 (3 × 20 mL), and the combined organic phases were dried (MgSO 4 ) and concentrated. 14,16 The residue was purified by column chromatography (CH 2 Cl 2 ) and the desired products 11 and 12 were obtained.…”

“…Throughout human evolution, natural products have played an indispensable role in the discovery of new pesticides. , A significant number of natural products possess various biological and pharmacological activities. − Natural products have been considered as important sources of pesticides ,− and of high-activity lead compounds that might be developed as natural-product-derived pesticides.…”

Agricultural Research Service Weed Science Research: Past, Present, and Future

“…Nature has produced a wealth of specialized phytotoxic metabolites that could potentially be developed or directly utilized for this purpose, and this vast resource is largely untapped. This potential is underscored by the fact that a significant percentage of the existing synthetic compounds used for crop protection were actually inspired by natural products, despite their fairly modest presence overall within the global pest control market (Sparks et al 2023). The Natural Product Utilization Research Unit (NPURU) in Oxford, MS, is focused on pursuing natural products as new herbicides that can target multiple cellular processes, are typically more environmentally benign, generally possess shorter environmental half-lives, pose lower risks to non-target organisms, and tend to be more favorably perceived by the public and are likely to face fewer regulatory hurdles for commercialization (Duke et al 2002; Marrone 2019).…”

Type II Polyketide Synthases: A Bioinformatics‐Driven Approach

“…Nature has evolved a myriad of natural products, or specialized metabolites, gradually from primary metabolism in living organisms [1] . The diverse chemical structures of natural products equip them with a range of functionalities that humans utilize as medicines, [2] crop protection agents, [3] food additives, [4] and cosmeceuticals [5] . With the advent of affordable microbial genome sequencing, genome mining of natural products has become a powerful tool for natural product investigation [6] .…”