Plants and microbes have evolved to survive in their ecological niche by producing secondary metabolites to compete with other microbes, plants, and insects. Thus these secondary metabolites can have various biological activities such as insecticidal, phytotoxic, and antifungal activities. As part of ongoing research efforts at the USDA-ARS, NPURU, we have investigated some plants belonging in the Rutaceae, Asteraceae and Apiaceae families as well as phyto-pathogenic fungi in search of natural products that can be used as insecticidal and insect repellent compounds or compounds that can be used as lead compounds in designing such compounds.  Two closely related solanopyrones were isolated from a fungus infecting <i>Hydrangea macrophylla</i>. Phoma lactone the major compound isolated was found to be mosquitocidal. An isocoumarin was isolated from the culture broth of <i>Diaporthe eres </i>and using this naturally occurring isocoumarin as a lead we synthesized several analogs of isocoumarins with higher mosquitocidal activity. A series of chromenes were also synthesized based on a chromene amide iasolated from a plant in the Rutaceae family. Some of these chromenes showed termiticidal activity and mosquito repellent and mosquitocidal activities. Isolation of active metabolites, bioassay results and synthesis of analogs will be discussed.

Insect repellents and insecticides from plants and microbes

2019 Fall National Meeting

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