Design, synthesis, and structure-activity relationship of novel aniline derivatives of chlorothalonil

Chlorothalonil with both low cost and low toxicity is a popularly used fungicide in the agrochemical field. The presence of nucleophilic groups on this compound allows further chemical modifications to obtain novel chlorothalonil derivatives. Fluazinam, another commercially available agent with a broad fungicidal spectrum, has a scaffold of diaryl amine structure. To mimic this backbone structure, a variety of (un)substituted phenyl amines was used as nucleophilic agents to react with chlorothalonil to obtain compounds with a diphenyl amine structure. Via an elegant design, two leads, 2,4,5-trichloro-6-(2,4-dichlorophenylamino)isophthalonitrile (7) and 2,4,5-trichloro-6-(2,4,6-trichlorophenylamino)isophthalonitrile (11), with potential fungicidal activity were discovered after a preliminary bioassay screen. These two leads were further modified to obtain final products by replacing the chlorine groups in the phenyl ring in phenyl amine with other functional groups. These functional groups with various electronic properties and spatial characteristics were considered to explore the relationship between structure and fungicidal activity. The results indicate that the electron-withdrawing group NO2 on the 4 position on the right phenyl ring plays a unique role on enhancing the fungicidal activity. The compounds were identified by proton nuclear magnetic resonance and elemental analysis. Bioassays demonstrated that some of the title compounds exhibited excellent fungicidal activities against cucumber downy mildew at 25 mg/L. Compound 20 has been shown as the optimal structure with 85% control against cucumber downy mildew at 6.25 mg/L concentration. The relationship between structure and fungicidal activity is reported. The present work demonstrates that chlorothalonil derivatives can be used as possible lead compounds for developing novel fungicides.