New Agro Library consists of 46,370 compounds.
In crop protection research, scientists utilize various sources of chemical inputs to derive new areas of chemistry for lead discovery. These sources include natural products, competitor-inspired chemistry, compound acquisition from universities and chemical vendors, combinatorial chemistry libraries, intermediates from projects in other indications, and compound collections from pharmaceutical and animal health companies. The screening hits obtained from these diverse sources undergo multiple rounds of design, synthesis, testing, and analysis to optimize their properties.
Both modern agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals interact with their target receptors or enzymes through molecular recognition processes. In many cases, homologous enzymes/receptors are targeted, leading to the discovery of active ingredients that serve both the agricultural and pharmaceutical industries. One example is the class of triazole antimycotics or fungicides. However, despite the shared need for bioavailability, active ingredients in agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals encounter different chemical environments en route from the application site to the biochemical target. Therefore, they generally require distinct physicochemical properties. Agrochemicals, for instance, have a lower number of hydrogen bond donors. More than 70% of insecticides have no hydrogen bond donor, and over 90% of herbicides have two or fewer hydrogen bond donors.
The Agro classes encompass PGR (plant growth regulators), herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, safeners, rodenticides, and other categories. The targets space includes ALS (acetolactate synthase) inhibitors, ACCase (acetyl-CoA carboxylase) inhibitors, Auxin mimetics, ACS (aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase) inhibitors, Elongases inhibitors, GGPP (geranylgeranyl diphosphate) cyclase inhibitors, PPO (protoporphyrinogen oxidase) inhibitors, GST (glutathione S-transferase) stimulators, 14-reductase inhibitors, DHP (dihydropicolinate) synthase inhibitors, DOXP (1-deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate) synthase inhibitors, EPSPS (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase) inhibitors, PDS (phytoene desaturase) inhibitors, and 4-HPPD (4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase) inhibitors.
