Assembly of thioether analogs from 2‐mercaptobenzoxazole‐fused honokiol and heterocyclic scaffolds and evaluation of their agrochemical potential

作者：Xiaoyan Zhi, Qiang Hu, Jin-qiu Duan, Ming-tao He, Zhenzhen Zheng, Jing Liang, Chun Yang · 发表于：Pest Management Science · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1002/ps.8733 · 被引用次数：7 · 研究领域：Magnolia and Illicium research、Plant-derived Lignans Synthesis and Bioactivity、Oxidative Organic Chemistry Reactions

Abstract BACKGROUND Persistent and excessive application of conventional synthetic pesticides has triggered a series of environmental and agricultural product safety risks in recent decades. Natural products are considered to provide considerable sources for the innovation of novel ecofriendly agrochemicals with high efficacy. RESULTS In this work, a structural splicing strategy was used to prepare 37 honokiol‐derived thioether analogs bearing different heterocyclic scaffolds and their pesticidal activities were assessed. Bioassay results showed that most of the target compounds have growth inhibitory activity against Mythimna separata . Notably, compounds I1 and I2 showed prominent growth inhibitory activity against M. separata with 50% lethal concentration (LC 50 ) values of 0.32 and 0.38 mg mL −1 , respectively, which were superior to precursor honokiol (LC 50 = 1.46 mg mL −1 ) and commercial insecticide toosendanin (LC 50 = 0.63 mg mL −1 ). Compounds E2 and G9 demonstrated pronounced ovicidal activities against the eggs of Plutella xylostella with LC 50 values of 6.34 and 7.49 μg mL −1 , respectively, compared with the LC 50 value of honokiol of 46.96 μg mL −1 . Furthermore, seven compounds E4 , E6 , E7 , E8 , G3 , H5 , and I5 showed excellent larvicidal activities against P. xylostella , significantly outperforming honokiol and the positive control rotenone. Preliminary analysis of structure–activity relationships reveals that the heterocyclic moieties introduced are ind...