New Agro Library

ChemDiv’s New Agro Library contains 46,370 compounds.

Scientists in crop protection research use a variety of chemical inputs from which new lead areas of chemistry are derived: natural products, competitor-inspired chemistry, compound acquisition from universities, chemical vendors, combinatorial chemistry libraries, intermediates from projects in other indications, and compound collections from pharmaceutical and animal health companies. The screening hits obtained from the abovementioned sources are usually optimized through diverse rounds of a design-synthesis-test-analysis cycle.

Modern agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals interact with their target receptors or enzymes via the same molecular recognition processes. In several cases, a homologous enzyme/receptor is addressed, so it is not altogether surprising that one compound class can give rise to (different) active ingredients serving both industries, for example, the triazole antimycotics or fungicides. However, although bioavailability is vital to both pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals, the chemical environments the active ingredients encounter en route from the site of application to the biochemical target are very different and generally require differing physicochemical properties. Agrochemicals have a lower number of hydrogen bond donors. For example, over 70% of the insecticides have no hydrogen bond donor, and over 90% of herbicides have two or fewer hydrogen bond donors. [1]

Agro classes include PGR, herbicide, insecticide, fungicide, safener, rodenticide, and others. Targets space includes ALS inhibitors, ACCase inhibitors, Auxin mimetics, ACS inhibitors, Elongases inhibitors, GGPP cyclases inhibitors, PPO inhibitors, GST stimulators, 14-reductase inhibitors, DHP synthase inhibitors, DOXP synthase inhibitors, EPSPS inhibitors, PDS inhibitors, 4-HPPD inhibitors.

[1] C. Lamberth, S. Jeanmart, T. Luksch, and A. Plant, “Current challenges and trends in the discovery of agrochemicals,” Science (80-. )., vol. 341, no. 6147, pp. 742–746, doi: 10.1126/science.1237227.