Industrial Distillation Fractions of Garlic Essential Oil, Design, Synthesis, and Antifungal Activity Evaluation of Aliphatic Substituted Trisulfide Derivatives

Abstract Garlic oil has a wide range of biological activities, and its broad‐spectrum activity against phytopathogenic fungi still has the potential to be explored. In this study, enzymatic treatment of garlic resulted in an increase of approximately 50 % in the yield of essential oil, a feasible GC‐MS analytical program for garlic oil was provided. Vacuum fractionation of the volatile oil and determination of its inhibitory activity against 10 fungi demonstrated that garlic oil has good antifungal activity. The antifungal activity levels were ranked as diallyl trisulfide ( S‐3 )>diallyl disulfide ( S‐2 )>diallyl monosulfide ( S‐1 ), with an EC 50 value of S‐3 against Botrytis cinerea reached 8.16 mg/L. Following the structural modification of compound S‐3 , a series of derivatives, including compounds S‐4~7 , were synthesized and screened for their antifungal activity. The findings unequivocally demonstrated that the compound dimethyl trisulfide ( S‐4 ) exhibited exceptional antifungal activity. The EC 50 of S‐4 against Sclerotinia sclerotiorum reached 6.83 mg/L. SEM, In vivo experiments, and changes in mycelial nucleic acids, soluble proteins and soluble sugar leakage further confirmed its antifungal activity. The study indicated that the trisulfide bond structure was the key to good antifungal activity, which can be developed into a new type of green plant‐derived fungicide for plant protection.