Striga hermonthica Suicidal Germination Activity of Potent Strigolactone Analogs: Evaluation from Laboratory Bioassays to Field Trials

Jamil, Muhammad; Wang, Jian You; Yonli, Djibril; Ota, Tsuyoshi; Berqdar, Lamis; Traore, Hamidou; Margueritte, Ouedraogo; Zwanenburg, Binne; Asami, Tadao; Al-Babili, Salim

doi:10.3390/plants11081045

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Striga hermonthica Suicidal Germination Activity of Potent Strigolactone Analogs: Evaluation from Laboratory Bioassays to Field Trials

²,

³,

Ouedraogo Margueritte

²,

Binne Zwanenburg

⁴,

Tadao Asami

³ and

Salim Al-Babili

^1,5,*

The BioActives Lab, Center for Desert Agriculture, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia

Institut de l’Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles (INERA), Ouagadougou 04 BP 8645, Burkina Faso

Applied Biological Chemistry, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan

⁴

Institute for Molecules and Materials, Radboud University, 6525 AJ Nijmegen, The Netherlands

⁵

Plant Science Program, Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Academic Editors: Milan S. Stankovic, Paula Baptista and Petronia Carillo

Plants 2022, 11(8), 1045; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11081045

Received: 11 March 2022 / Revised: 4 April 2022 / Accepted: 11 April 2022 / Published: 12 April 2022

(This article belongs to the Special Issue 10th Anniversary of Plants—Recent Advances and Perspectives)

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Abstract

The obligate hemiparasite Striga hermonthica is one of the major global biotic threats to agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa, causing severe yield losses of cereals. The germination of Striga seeds relies on host-released signaling molecules, mainly strigolactones (SLs). This dependency opens up the possibility of deploying SL analogs as “suicidal germination agents” to reduce the accumulated seed bank of Striga in infested soils. Although several synthetic SL analogs have been developed for this purpose, the utility of these compounds in realizing the suicidal germination strategy for combating Striga is still largely unknown. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of three potent SL analogs (MP3, MP16, and Nijmegen-1) under laboratory, greenhouse, and farmer’s field conditions. All investigated analogs showed around a 50% Striga germination rate, equivalent to a 50% reduction in infestation, which was comparable to the standard SL analog GR24. Importantly, MP16 had the maximum reduction of Striga emergence (97%) in the greenhouse experiment, while Nijmegen-1 appeared to be a promising candidate under field conditions, with a 43% and 60% reduction of Striga emergence in pearl millet and sorghum fields, respectively. These findings confirm that the selected SL analogs appear to make promising candidates as simple suicidal agents both under laboratory and real African field conditions, which may support us to improve suicidal germination technology to deplete the Striga seed bank in African agriculture. View Full-Text

Keywords: germination stimulant; witchweed; methyl phenlactonoates (MPs); Nijmegen-1; weed

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Jamil, M.; Wang, J.Y.; Yonli, D.; Ota, T.; Berqdar, L.; Traore, H.; Margueritte, O.; Zwanenburg, B.; Asami, T.; Al-Babili, S. Striga hermonthica Suicidal Germination Activity of Potent Strigolactone Analogs: Evaluation from Laboratory Bioassays to Field Trials. Plants 2022, 11, 1045. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11081045

AMA Style

Jamil M, Wang JY, Yonli D, Ota T, Berqdar L, Traore H, Margueritte O, Zwanenburg B, Asami T, Al-Babili S. Striga hermonthica Suicidal Germination Activity of Potent Strigolactone Analogs: Evaluation from Laboratory Bioassays to Field Trials. Plants. 2022; 11(8):1045. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11081045

Chicago/Turabian Style

Jamil, Muhammad, Jian Y. Wang, Djibril Yonli, Tsuyoshi Ota, Lamis Berqdar, Hamidou Traore, Ouedraogo Margueritte, Binne Zwanenburg, Tadao Asami, and Salim Al-Babili. 2022. "Striga hermonthica Suicidal Germination Activity of Potent Strigolactone Analogs: Evaluation from Laboratory Bioassays to Field Trials" Plants 11, no. 8: 1045. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11081045

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Striga hermonthica Suicidal Germination Activity of Potent Strigolactone Analogs: Evaluation from Laboratory Bioassays to Field Trials

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