Design, synthesis and biological activity determination of novel phenylpyrazole protoporphyrinogen oxidase inhibitor herbicides

Protoporphyrinogen oxidase (PPO, EC 1.3.3.4) is the last common enzyme in the biosynthetic pathway in the synthesis of heme and chlorophyll. The high-frequency use of PPO inhibitor herbicides has led to the gradual exposure of pesticide damage and resistance problems. In order to solve this kind of problem, there is an urgent need to develop new PPO inhibitor herbicides. In this paper, 16 phenylpyrazole derivatives were designed by the principle of active substructure splicing through the electron isosterism of five-membered heterocycles. Greenhouse herbicidal activity experiments and in vitro PPO activity experiments showed that the inhibitory effect of compound 9 on weed growth was comparable to that of pyraflufen-ethyl. Crop safety experiments and cumulative concentration experiments in crops showed that when the spraying concentration was 300 g ai/ha, wheat, corn, rice and other cereal crops were more tolerant to compound 9, among which wheat showed high tolerance, which was comparable to the crop safety of pyraflufen-ethyl. Herbicidal spectrum experiments showed that compound 9 had inhibitory activity against most weeds. Molecular docking results showed that compound 9 formed one hydrogen bond interaction with amino acid residue ARG-98 and two π-π stacking interactions with amino acid residue PHE-392, indicating that compound 9 had better herbicidal activity than pyraflufen-ethyl. It shows that compound 9 is expected to be a lead compound of phenylpyrazole PPO inhibitor herbicide and used as a herbicide in wheat field.