On the antibiotic and antifungal activity of pestalone, pestalachloride A, and structurally related compounds.

Pestalone (1) is a prominent marine natural product first isolated by M. Cueto et al. in 2001 from a co-fermentation of a marine fungus with a marine bacterium. For more than 10 years, 1 had been considered as a promising new antibiotic compound, the reported MIC against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) being 37 ng/mL. After overcoming the limited availability of 1 by total synthesis (N. Slavov et al., 2010) we performed new biological tests, which did not confirm the expected degree of antibiotic activity. The observed activity of pestalone against different MRSA strains was 3-10 µg/mL, as determined independently in two laboratories. A number of synthetic derivatives of 1 including pestalachloride A and other isoindolinones (formed from 1 by reaction with amines) did not exhibit higher activities as compared to 1 against MRSA and a series of plant pathogens.

Inhibition of acetyl-CoA carboxylase by spirotetramat causes growth arrest and lipid depletion in nematodes.

Plant-parasitic nematodes pose a significant threat to agriculture causing annual yield losses worth more than 100 billion US$. Nematode control often involves the use of nematicides, but many of them including non-selective fumigants have been phased out, particularly due to ecotoxicological concerns. Thus new control strategies are urgently needed. Spirotetramat (SPT) is used as phloem-mobile systemic insecticide targeting acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC) of pest insects and mites upon foliar application. However, in nematodes the mode of action of SPT and its effect on their development have not been studied so far. Our studies revealed that SPT known to be activated in planta to SPT-enol acts as a developmental inhibitor of the free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and the plant-parasitic nematode Heterodera schachtii. Exposure to SPT-enol leads to larval arrest and disruption of the life cycle. Furthermore, SPT-enol inhibits nematode ACC activity, affects storage lipids and fatty acid composition. Silencing of H. schachtii ACC by RNAi induced similar phenotypes and thus mimics the effects of SPT-enol, supporting the conclusion that SPT-enol acts on nematodes by inhibiting ACC. Our studies demonstrated that the inhibition of de novo lipid biosynthesis by interfering with nematode ACC is a new nematicidal mode of action addressed by SPT, a well-known systemic insecticide for sucking pest control.

Unravelling the Molecular Determinants of Bee Sensitivity to Neonicotinoid Insecticides.

The impact of neonicotinoid insecticides on the health of bee pollinators is a topic of intensive research and considerable current debate [1]. As insecticides, certain neonicotinoids, i.e., N-nitroguanidine compounds such as imidacloprid and thiamethoxam, are as intrinsically toxic to bees as to the insect pests they target. However, this is not the case for all neonicotinoids, with honeybees orders of magnitude less sensitive to N-cyanoamidine compounds such as thiacloprid [2]. Although previous work has suggested that this is due to rapid metabolism of these compounds [2-5], the specific gene(s) or enzyme(s) involved remain unknown. Here, we show that the sensitivity of the two most economically important bee species to neonicotinoids is determined by cytochrome P450s of the CYP9Q subfamily. Radioligand binding and inhibitor assays showed that variation in honeybee sensitivity to N-nitroguanidine and N-cyanoamidine neonicotinoids does not reside in differences in their affinity for the receptor but rather in divergent metabolism by P450s. Functional expression of the entire CYP3 clade of P450s from honeybees identified a single P450, CYP9Q3, that metabolizes thiacloprid with high efficiency but has little activity against imidacloprid. We demonstrate that bumble bees also exhibit profound differences in their sensitivity to different neonicotinoids, and we identify CYP9Q4 as a functional ortholog of honeybee CYP9Q3 and a key metabolic determinant of neonicotinoid sensitivity in this species. Our results demonstrate that bee pollinators are equipped with biochemical defense systems that define their sensitivity to insecticides and this knowledge can be leveraged to safeguard bee health.

The design, synthesis and screening of a muscarinic acetylcholine receptor targeted compound library.

Potent new agonists of the insect muscarinic acetylcholine receptor (mAChR) have been discovered by synthesizing and screening a library of 225 oxime ether amines. Library evaluation was facilitated by the development of a high throughput test enabling the rapid determination of muscarinic agonist activity. The most interesting compounds were the thiadiazole 17 and the isoxazole 24 which were potent muscarinic agonists (EC50 13 and 21 nM, respectively) and showed lead levels of insecticidal activity.

Biochemical evidence that an S431F mutation in acetylcholinesterase-1 of Aphis gossypii mediates resistance to pirimicarb and omethoate.

Molecular changes in acetylcholinesterase (AChE) leading to target-site resistance to carbamate and organophosphate insecticides have recently been identified. Of particular interest is the S431F mutation in ace2 and its orthologue ace1 of Myzus persicae Sulzer and Aphis gossypii Glover, respectively. This mutation has been correlated with resistance to pirimicarb, but biochemical evidence has not yet been provided. Here, we describe for the first time that recombinantly expressed AChE1 from A gossypii carrying the S431F mutation is insensitive to pirimicarb and omethoate, but sensitive to demeton-S-methyl and hypersensitive to carbofuran. Furthermore, site-directed mutagenesis of the serine residue at position 431 in ace1 from a pirimicarb-susceptible clone of A gossypii conferred insensitivity to pirimicarb. We conclude that AChE1 of A gossypii is the target of toxicological relevance of carbamates and organophosphates.