Selective toxicity insect growth regulators

Insect Growth Regulators. These compounds (40—45), unlike most conventional insecticides, interfere with biochemical processes that are unique to arthropods eg, molting, ecdysis, and formation of the chitinous exoskeleton. Therefore, they are selective insecticides with very low mammalian toxicity. 

For the last two decades, in order to develop insecticides with selective toxicity, efforts to identify mimics (agonists) of 20-hydroxyecdysone, the insect molting hormone, have always led to the use of ecdysteroids or closely related steroidal analogs which are not commercially cost-effective. Recently, a new class of insect growth regulators, the 1,2-diacyl-l-alkylhydrazines, has been discovered and shown to be the first nonsteroidal agonists of 20-hydroxyecdysone. 

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