Safeners Improve Maize Tolerance under Herbicide Toxicity Stress by Increasing the Activity of Enzymes in Vivo

Tribenuron-methyl (TM), as one of the sulfonylurea (SU) herbicides, has been widely and effectively applied for many kinds of plants. SUs inhibit plant growth by restraining the biosynthetic pathway of branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) catalyzed by acetolactate synthase (ALS). Safeners are agrochemicals that protect crops from herbicide injuries. To improve the crop tolerance under TM toxicity stress, this paper evaluated the protective effect of N-tosyloxazolidine-3-carboxamide. It turned out that most of the tested compounds showed significant protection against TM via enhancing the glutathione (GSH) content and glutathione S-transferase (GST) activity. Among all of the tested compounds, compound 16 exhibited more excellent protection than the contrast safener R-28725 and other target compounds. A positive correlation between the growth level, endogenous GSH content, and GST activity was observed in this research. The GST kinetic parameter Vmax of the maize was increased by 29.6% after treatment with compound 16, while Km was decreased by 51.9% compared to the untreated control. The molecular docking model indicated that compound 16 could compete with TM in the active site of ALS, which could interpret the protective effects of safeners. The present work demonstrated that N-tosyloxazolidine-3-carboxamide derivatives could be considered as potential candidates for developing new safeners in the future.