Abstract-Azole and indole are parent substances of many natural and synthetic compounds with significant biological activity. However, the biological activity of the indole and azole conjugates are lack of investigation. In the present work, a series of hybrid molecules with imidazole and indole moiety were designed by using camalexin as a molecular scaffold. Compounds with different length of the carboxylic acid (4a-4f) were prepared. The antifungal activity of this synthetic series together with the ethyl esters analogues (3a-3f) against Magnaporthe oryzae were determined by using agar cup plate assay. Data obtained from the structure-activity relationship studies indicated that the ester analogues displayed antifungal activity against Magnaporthe oryzae while the carboxylic acid derivatives did not. This result indicated that the carboxylic acid ethyl ester moiety is important to antifungal activity. Among all the synthesized compounds, we found that, at a concentration of 100 M, compound 3c displays the most potent inhibition activity with 38.8±2.5% on the inhibition of the diameter of the mycelial mat of Magnaporthe oryzae while the positive control of propiconazole (10 M) was found 39.3±2.9%.Index Terms-Antifungal activity, imidazole, indole, rice blast.
I. INTRODUCTIONThere are tremendous needs to control pathogenic microbes for health care and in agricultural industry. The chemicals that either kill or display inhibitory activity on microbial growth are currently the major solutions for pathogenic microbe control [1].Rice blast disease (RBD) which is caused by the pathogenic fungi of M. oryzae, is a leading constraint in world rice production [2]. The high incidence of plant mortality and the lack of effective control methods cause billions of dollars in losses worldwide each year. Hence, great efforts and various management strategies have been made to control the RBD [3] inimize the severity of RBD [4].Some fungicides are targeting membranes functions due to the cell order and integrity of microbial membrane are significantly important. Chemicals that directly or indirectly target membranes functions or their components synthesis are quite effective to cause the lethality of the microbes thereby controlling the microbial disease.Several chemical structures have been found effective on killing or inhibiting the microbial growth which including indole [5] and azole derivatives [6]. Some indole derivatives Manuscript received February 18, 2017; revised May 7, 2017. The authors were with the Department of Biotechnology, Akita Prefectural University, 241-438, Shimoshinjo Nakano Akita-Shi, Akita 010-0195 Japan (e-mail: K.O. e-mail: jmwang@akita-pu.ac.jp).has been found with broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity [5]. Many indole scaffold antimicrobial agents have been well investigated [7]-[9]. On the other hand, azole derivatives are also well known antimicrobial agents [6]. The action mechanism of azoles is believed that they targeting the P450 enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of sterol [10]. It is...