Undefeated-Changing The Phenamacril Scaffold Is Not Enough To Beat Resistantfusarium

Filamentous fungi belonging to the genusFusariumare notorious plant-pathogens that infect, damage and contaminate a wide variety of important crops. Phenamacril is the first member of a novel class of single-site acting cyanoacrylate fungicides which has proven highly effective against important members of the genusFusarium. However, the recent emergence of field-resistant strains exhibiting qualitative resistance poses a major obstacle for the continued use of phenamacril. In this study, we synthesized novel cyanoacrylate compounds based on the phenamacril-scaffold to test their growth-inhibitory potential against wild-typeFusariumand phenamacril-resistant strains. Our findings show that most chemical modifications to the phenamacril-scaffold are associated with almost complete loss of fungicidal activity andin vitroinhibition of myosin motor domain ATPase activity.