The curative activity of some arylidene dihydropyrimidine hydrazone against Tobacco mosaic virus infestation

Abstract

A series of novel pyrimidine-based derivative compounds were synthesized and evaluated for antiviral activity against Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). All chemical structures of the prepared compounds were identified and characterized by IR, NMR, and elemental analysis. Under greenhouse conditions, the preliminary bioassays revealed that all compounds exhibited anti-TMV activity ranging from 23.5 % to 90.1% at 50 µg/mL concentration, indicating potential antiviral efficacy. Among the new compounds, the benzylidene derivative 3a was the most potent and demonstrated the highest inhibition effect of 90%, with a significant reduction in the TMV accumulation level of 91.4%. Furthermore, the curative activity of 3a was associated with a considerable decrease in H2O2 and MDA (nonenzymatic oxidative stress markers) compared to the TMV treatment. In addition, significant increases in the transcriptional levels of pathogenesis-related proteins (PR-1, PR-3, PR-4, and PR-5) at 4 and 6 dpi were shown to induce systemic resistance against TMV. Furthermore, molecular docking investigation demonstrated that the benzylidene derivative 3a was strongly lodged in the binding sites of TMV-coat protein at position 2. Consequently, the obtained results suggest that the new 3a compound could be applied as a safe control agent against plant viral infection.

Keywords

• TMV
• Pyrimidines
• Hydrazones
• PR genes
• And anti-virus