Mosquito-borne disease accounts for the death of approximately 700,000 people annually throughout the world with many more succumbing to the debilitating side effects associated with these diseases. Moreover, this is exacerbated in many countries where the lack of mosquito control resources and the lack of methods to treat and prevent human and veterinary disease coincide. As wild mosquito populations grow more resistant to currently utilized control chemistries, the need for cheap and effective novel chemical means for vector control are more important than ever. Previous work in our laboratory has demonstrated that plant essential oils and terpenoids are capable of enhancing the toxicity of permethrin against multiple mosquito species that are of particular importance as public health vectors. Our hypothesis is that plant essential oils are capable of enhancing and synergizing diverse insecticides utilized for the control of insect vectors. To test this, our group has screened numerous plant essential oils in combination with various pyrethroids against both pyrethroid-susceptible and pyrethroid-resistant strains of mosquitoes. A number of plant essential oils were shown to significantly synergize pyrethroids to a greater extent than piperonyl butoxide in these studies. To explore the mechanism of this enhancement, we assessed the degree to which plant essential oils inhibited various detoxification enzyme processes. We demonstrated that select plant essential oils significantly inhibited both glutathione s-trasnferase and cytochromes P450 enzyme activity in this study. Our work highlights the potential of plant essential oils as efficacious additives in future insecticidal formulations and illustrates their potential to synergize currently available insecticides on the market. <br/>

Phytochemical synergists: enhancing pyrethroids with natural plant compounds

256th National Meeting (2018)

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