Planta Med 2014; 80 - P1L87
DOI: 10.1055/s-0034-1394744

Bioprospection in New Caledonia and Madagascar for the discovery of new potential agrochemical agents

V Dumontet 1, M Litaudon 1, F Olivon 1, C Poullain 2, P Rasoanaivo 3, N Fokialakis 4, M Halabalaki 4, AL Skaltsounis 4, O Sorgenfrei 5, D Breuninger 5, F Roussi 1
  • 1Centre de Recherche de Gif, Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles, CNRS, 1, Avenue de la Terrasse, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
  • 2Laboratoire des Plantes Médicinales CNRS, Centre IRD de Nouméa BP 643, 98845 Nouméa Cedex, New Caledonia
  • 3Institut Malgache de Recherches Appliquées, Avarabohitra-Itaosy, 101 Antananarivo, Madagascar
  • 4Department of Pharmacognosy & Natural Products Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis Zografou, Athens, 15771, Greece
  • 5BASF SE, APR/HP – Li721, D-67117 Limburgerhof, Germany

The present work aims to identify new promising plant sources, which could be exploited for their agrochemical properties. In the framework of the FP7 AgroCos project, 450 plant parts resulting from 38 families from the biodiversity of New Caledonia and Madagascar were selected and collected. The corresponding 900 extracts were screened against four fungal pathogens, five insects and two plants with a global hit rate of 3%. 27 hits were highlighted, especially for fungicide activities. The samples were screened for fungicidal activity on 96-well microplates by a robotic system using 4 phytopathogenic fungal species in liquid culture. The growth of the fungi is measured by the change of the optical density. The growth of the samples is ompared with the one of untreated controls and the one in the presence of a known fungicide (reference). The threshold to define active samples is 0.8. On the basis of the HPLC fractionation profiles correlated to the activities and data in the literature, 5 plants exhibiting fungicide activities (within a range of activity from 0.8 to 1) were investigated (Monanthotaxis sp., Myrtopsis sp., Macaranga sp., Uvaria sp., Eriosema sp.), leading in the isolation of 34 compounds including 10 new compounds belonging to the series of flavonoids and coumarins.

Acknowledgements: This 4-years project is funded by Europe (FP7-KBBE-2009 – 3; AgroCos 2010).

Keywords: natural products, agrochemical, fungicide, screening, bioprospection, flavonoïds, coumarins,