New Unknown Mode of Action

Despite intensive efforts to elucidate the mode of action of new fungicides, in some cases the biochemical target of a new compound remains unclear. This chapter describes five compounds with unknown mode of action, cymoxanil, fosetyl-aluminium, flusulfamide, diclomezine and triazoxide. 

Completely new synthetic inhibitors of unknown mode of action (Chapter 30.3) or new highly specific inhibitors with sucii a mode of action described only prior by highly toxic natural inhibitor receptors (Chapter 31) are presented by the inventors from Japanese companies, showing the highly innovative contribution of Japanese researchers to the discovery of new insecticides and miticides. 

Metabolic profiling, on the other hand, is very useful in classifying compounds of known or unknown modes of action, and therefore a powerful tool for the chemist involved in design and synthesis of new agrochemicals Classification will certainly become more productive as more and more different response patterns are registered in... 

In much the same way that metabolomics can be used to infer function of unknown genes, it is likely to be increasingly used in the determination of mode of action of biologically active substances, be they naturally occurring or synthetic. Early efforts in this regard have heavily focused upon the discovery of new herbicides with novel modes of action, this is considered a priority assignment in plant protection research, see Grossmann (2005) for an example. 

Although a large number of p-blockers have been investigated in the clinic, their mode of action in hypertension is still unknown.60 it is unclear whether all agents act by the same or the same combination of effects and whether all the observed effects are due to p-adrenergic receptor antagonism. The role of renin continues to be argued without new conclusions.60 The central depressor effects have been reviewed.69 It has... 

When pyrazolynate (pyrazolate) (6, Fig. 4.4.3) was launched in 1980 by Sankyo Co., Ltd in Japan the world s first HPPD compound entered the herbicide market even though at that time the target site was unknown. Two years earlier, Sankyo had presented its activity on this area at the Fourth International Congress of Pesticide Chemistry in Zurich, Switzerland [2] but had already patented the main compounds in 1974 [3]. Interestingly, this all happened without the knowledge of the precise mode of action. Pyrazolynate and two analogues were previously classified as Protox inhibitors [4]. Pyrazolynate is not new and modern but it is included in this review as it is relatively unknown outside of Japan. 

Although it became clear quite early during cross resistance studies that fenhexamid was the first representative of a new mode of action class, the exact biochemical target was unknown when the new botryticide was launched in 1998. Only in 2001 did the research group of Pierre Leroux at INRA Versailles identify fenhexamid as the first member of a new class of SBI fungicides [110]. 

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