Plant diseases that are caused by fungi and nematodes have become increasingly serious in recent years. However, there are few pesticide chemicals that can be used for the joint control of fungi and nematodes on the market. To solve this problem, a series of novel 1,2,4-oxadiazole derivatives containing amide fragments were designed and synthesized. Additionally, the bioassays revealed that the compound F15 demonstrated excellent antifungal activity against Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (S. sclerotiorum) in vitro, and the EC50 value of that was 2.9 μg/mL, which is comparable with commonly used fungicides thifluzamide and fluopyram. Meanwhile, F15 demonstrated excellent curative and protective activity against S. sclerotiorum-infected cole in vivo. The scanning electron microscopy results showed that the hyphae of S. sclerotiorum treated with F15 became abnormally collapsed and shriveled, thereby inhibiting the growth of the hyphae. Furthermore, F15 exhibited favorable inhibition against the succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) of the S. sclerotiorum (IC50 = 12.5 μg/mL), and the combination mode and binding ability between compound F15 and SDH were confirmed by molecular docking. In addition, compound F11 showed excellent nematicidal activity against Meloidogyne incognita at 200 μg/mL, the corrected mortality rate was 93.2%, which is higher than that of tioxazafen.
Keywords: 1,2,4-oxadiazole; antifungal activity; nematicidal activity; succinate dehydrogenase.