Abstract
Plant-originated triterpenes are important insecticidal molecules. The research on insecticidal activity of molecules from Meliaceae plants has always received attention due to the molecules from this family showing a variety of insecticidal activities with diverse mechanisms of action. In this paper, we discuss 102 triterpenoid molecules with insecticidal activity of plants of eight genera (Aglaia, Aphanamixis, Azadirachta, Cabralea, Carapa, Cedrela, Chisocheton, and Chukrasia) in Meliaceae. In total, 19 insecticidal plant species are presented. Among these species, Azadirachta indica A. Juss is the most well-known insecticidal plant and azadirachtin is the active molecule most widely recognized and highly effective botanical insecticide. However, it is noteworthy that six species from Cedrela were reported to show insecticidal activity and deserve future study. In this paper, a total of 102 insecticidal molecules are summarized, including 96 nortriterpenes, 4 tetracyclic triterpenes, and 2 pentacyclic triterpenes. Results showed antifeedant activity, growth inhibition activity, poisonous activity, or other activities. Among them, 43 molecules from 15 plant species showed antifeedant activity against 16 insect species, 49 molecules from 14 plant species exhibited poisonous activity on 10 insect species, and 19 molecules from 11 plant species possessed growth regulatory activity on 12 insect species. Among these molecules, azadirachtins were found to be the most successful botanical insecticides. Still, other molecules possessed more than one type of obvious activity, including 7-deacetylgedunin, salannin, gedunin, azadirone, salannol, azadiradione, and methyl angolensate. Most of these molecules are only in the primary stage of study activity; their mechanism of action and structure–activity relationship warrant further study.
Highlights
It is well known that the increase of crop yields largely depends on synthetic pesticides
It is recognized that synthetic pesticides have some negative impacts and the indiscriminate application of synthetic pesticides has resulted in contamination of water, soil, air, and crop products, etc
Gedunin at 50 mg/kg caused a mortality of 63.3% to the larval S. frugiperda after 7 d [48,93]. 17β-hydroxyazadiradione showed antifeedant activity on the lower subterranean termite R. speratus with a PC95 (95% protective concentrations, μg/disc) value (30 d) of 235.6 μg/disc [23,98,99]
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Natural products are attractive as templates because of their structural diversity They can be used directly and have been used as models for the development of several successful insecticides that introduce new mechanisms of action, which are greatly needed. The Meliaceae family has 50 genera, including more than 550 species, which are evergreen or deciduous trees or shrubs and are mainly distributed in the tropics and subtropics These plants are known to be rich sources of limonoids. Numerous studies have demonstrated that the great insecticidal potential of Meliaceae plants has been mainly due to triterpenoids Many of these triterpenoids have shown contact poison, stomach poison, antifeedant, or growth inhibition activities on various important agricultural insects [3,4,5]. This review provides a relatively systemic background on the research of insecticidal triterpenoids from Meliaceae plants and can offer meaningful hints to the development of insecticidal triterpenoids as novel insecticides and promote the application of these molecules in agricultural production
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