Plant biocommunicators: their phytotoxicity, degradation studies and potential use as herbicide models

Abstract

The development of new bioactive molecules with potential application in pharmacology and agriculture by using natural products as templates has been a widely used approach in the recent years. Focusing our attention in phytochemicals with potential application in agriculture, allelochemicals (natural plant toxins) have been deeply researched with the main purpose of finding phytotoxic substances to use as new herbicidal templates. The development of new analytical methodologies, improved bioassay techniques and a complete understanding of the allelopathic phenomenon will provide new tools for natural herbicide models development, in the context of the new approaches to integrated pest management. A deeper knowledge of the release and assimilation of allelochemicals, and the degradation phenomena associated to them will aid to discover new chemical structures with potential utility, in addition to a better understanding on the ecological interactions mediated by phytochemicals. The research on these topics, made with promising allelochemicals such as benzoxazinones and their degradation derivatives, the improvements on analytical design, the degradation mechanisms elucidation and the novel bioassay techniques recently developed, are revised herein.