Development of novel semiochemicals for crop protection

Lead Research Organisation: CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Department Name: Chemistry

Abstract

Due to pressure on available farmland there is an urgent need for sustainably enhancing food crop production. One approach to combat insect pests it to repel or attract them, using (semio)chemical signal baited traps, keeping them away from high value crops.

We have produced modified aphid repellent and attractant semiochemicals through a strategic chemical process using enzymes. A novel and highly attractive aphid semiochemical (DMGD) has shown high field attraction to a range of pest aphids and has been demonstrated in field simulating studies as offering pest aphid control by the push-pull approach with the push against plant colonisation provided by the natural repellent, GD, in the isoprenoid group of natural products and the pull by the related DMGD. Opportunities for commercial scale up have been identified and can now underpin field trials for aphid control and commercial testing specifically against the lettuce aphid in the high value field production of lettuce.

Publications

10 25 50

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Radadiya A (2020) Characterizing human odorant signals: insights from insect semiochemistry and in silico modelling. in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences

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Huynh F (2020) Accelerating Biphasic Biocatalysis through New Process Windows. in Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English)

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Johnson LA (2020) Modular Chemoenzymatic Synthesis of Terpenes and their Analogues. in Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English)

 
Description Synthesising enough material for field scale trials has proved extremely resource intensive, so we developed a fully bio-catalytic synthesis (manuscript now published) for the components of the push-pull system; germacrene D and dimethyl germacrene D. This allows a two step synthesis carried out in water using purified recombinant enzymes to replace a length(l)y chemical synthesis requiring inert atmospheres, repeated chromatography and a highly-skilled operator. Recent advances, mostly in reaction engineering to optimise the space/time yield have resulted in major advances in isolated yields with hundreds of milligrams of germacrene D and the attractant analogue now being isolated readily.

Field trials have been completed and final data analysis is ongoing. Publications on this analysis are in preparation.
Exploitation Route While of considerable use to this project, the bio-catalytic synthesis technique we have developed can be applied generally to the synthesis of terpene and methylated terpene products. As many natural hormones and semiochemicals are based on terpenes with additional methyl or methylene groups, this could have a wide range of applications for crop protection.

Lead researcher on this project Dr Luke Johnson has recently been awarded a BBSRC impact acceleration account award (Dec 2023 until Oct 2024) for further work on commercial development of our modular chemical biology approach to isoprenyl diphosphate and terpenoid synthesis. This work is focused on scaling up the preparation of commercial interesting terpenoids for businesses to develop and test formulations for use in the field (crop protection).
Sectors Agriculture

Food and Drink

Chemicals

Environment

Manufacturing

including Industrial Biotechology

 
Description Advancing High Value Terpenoidal Semiochemicals for Crop Protection
Amount £49,942 (GBP)
Organisation Cardiff University 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 12/2023 
End 10/2024
 
Description Super Follow-on Fund
Amount £551,216 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/R019681/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 04/2018 
End 04/2020
 
Title OLFACTORY LIGANDS 
Description The invention provides analogues of (S)-germacrene D analogue which have improved insect repellent properties compared to (S)-germacrene D analogue or which have insect attractant properties. 
IP Reference US2018271089 
Protection Patent granted
Year Protection Granted 2018
Licensed Commercial In Confidence
Impact Further development has been supported by Super Follow-On Funding.
 
Description Video for Trio Sci Cymru on Youtube 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact A BSc project student (supervised by David Miller, CoI on this grant) produced a video in collaboration with Trio Sci Cymru to disseminate the idea of semiochemical based crop protection as a sustainable, environmentally benign, methodology as opposed to use of large quantities of pesticides through spraying.
This video is professional in look and has been viewed 759 times on its still existing YouTube channel. Trio Sci Cymru were a welsh government funded organisation whose aim was to encourage engagement in science between school and university level students in STEM subjects.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pju-5zQb6gg