Direct delivery of pesticide has many uncontrolled adverse
effects such as high toxicity, large application amount and
decomposition of active ingredients.1 To address these issues,
methods for conditionally controlling release are needed, since
controlled release of pesticides has substantial advantages
including enhanced bioavailability, prolonged length of activity,
improved physiochemical properties, reduced phytotoxicity and
lowering of the environment secondary effects.1 The previously-
developed pesticide-release systems took advantage of
stability, light wavelength, efficiency of desire cleavage reaction,
avoidance of photodamage/photodegradation and the toxicity of
cleavage product of caging group.36 Most importantly, a PPG
must be subtly selected. Various PPGs have been developed in
the past decades. The well-studied and frequently used PPGs
include
o-nitrobenzyl,
coumarin-4-ylmethyl
and
p-
hydroxylphenacyl.36 The coumarin phototriggers attract the most
attentions recently due to their superior features, such as longer
absorption wavelength, large molar coefficients, fast release rates,
improved stability, high biocompatibility and fluorescent
emitting.36 Considering the substituent effects on this cages, 7-
dialkylamino substituted coumarin was selected here since it has
the absorption band at biologically benign region. Thus, the
diethylamino-coumarin-4-ylmethyl caged fipronil was prepared
for our subsequent investigations (Figure 1).
nanotechnology,1,6,7 microencapsulation2-4,8
and
polymer
science.5,9 These methodologies provided slow release of active
ingredients, but the release process cannot be easily regulated at
spatial and temporal resolution. In this context, a more precise
controlled technology is desired to the spatiotemporal control
over the pesticide release.
The recent fast-developing photo-triggered technology
provides possibilities for controlled release which promises better
remote, temporal and spatial control than conventional
methods.10,11 To realize such a photochemical process, a photo-
labile protecting (photocaging) group (PPG) is usually used to
covalently couple with the molecule being released, generating a
caged precursor that can undergo cleavage under light.12 The
advent of photocaged conception creates great opportunities for
spatiotemporal manipulation of a variety of processes in chemical,
biological and material science.10,13 Excellent reviews include
light-triggered catalysts,14 organic surfaces,15 biomedical
materials13 and photocontrol of cellular chemistry16-18 or gene
expression.19,20 Normally, such photoresponsive system has
blocked function in the caged state and can be irreversibly
activated upon irradiation to release the functional ingredients.
Due to the encouraging advances, this technology thus far has
been well applied for the photo-regulated release of bioactive
molecules, such as neurotransmitters, enzyme substrates,
pheromones, lipids, and second messengers.10, 21, 22
Turning attention back to agrochemical science, the
combination of PPG with pesticide provided a promising release
method with pioneering work done by N. D. Pradeep Singh et al.
Example applications included photo-controlled release of 2, 4-D
herbicide,23-25 plant growth regulators,26 sex pheromone27 and
plant hormone salicylic acid.28 However, photo-controlled release
of an insecticide molecule has not yet been described.
Figure 1. Molecular design of photoresponsive coumarin-caged fipronil and
its synthetic route. Reagents and condition: a) 1. SeO2, Ar, p-xylene, reflux,
53 h; 2. NaBH4, CH3OH, r.t., 4 h, 26%. b) p-nitrophenyl chloroformate,
DIPEA, Ar, dry dichloromethane, r. t., 20h, 50%. c) fipronil, DMAP, Ar, dry
dichloromethane, r. t., 48h, 24%.
Fipronil (Fip) is a phenylpyrazole insecticide widely used for
seed-treatment, sanitary pest control and animal health, but its
application was strictly restricted in some districts due to high
toxicity to non-target wildlife.29-32 Fipronil is stable at dark in
mildly acidic to neutral water, but is prone to undergo photolysis
or biological oxidation or reduction in vivo to form desulfinyl,
sulfone, sulfide or amide metabolites.29,33 Its half-life time of
photodegradation is 0.33 day (Florida summer sunlight).34 In a
specific case, the persistence of fipronil reduced significantly
when exposed to sunlight.35 As a consequence, two attempts were
previously made for controlling release of fipronil using
microencapsulation of in situ polymerization or biocompatible
silica nanocapsules. Herein, we demonstrated a photochemical
method that releases insecticidal fipronil using pulses of light,
which enables more precise control and real-time activation. The
fipronil was caged using coumarin as photoremovable protecting
group. The caged compound is stable and would release fipronil
only upon irradiation.
The photoresponsive CF was prepared from a three-steps
route starting from commercially available 7-(diethylamino)-4-
methyl-2H-chromen-2-one 1 (Figure 1). Oxidation of 1 with
Selenium dioxide and the following reduction by Sodium
borohydride (NaBH4) afforded alcohol intermediate 2 (Cou).
Alcohol 2 then condensed with p-nitrophenyl chloroformate to
furnish intermediate 3 under catalysis of DIPEA. Finally, 3
reacted with Fip at presence of DMAP to present the target caged
product CF.
With successful obtaining of coumarin-caged fipronil, its
photophysical properties were studied first. The absorption and
emission maximum wavelength, molar absorption coefficient,
Stokes shift and fluorescence quantum yield of CF were
summarized in Table 1. In UV-Vis spectra, CF features two
obvious absorption bands centered at 390 nm and 245 nm (Figure
2, A), which corresponded to the absorption of coumarin and
fipronil fragments, respectively. The maximum emission
wavelength of CF is about 475 nm and the Stokes shift is 85 nm
(Figure 2, B). CF has high fluorescence quantum yield (Φf = 0.2),
which facilitate its application in imaging study of tested targets.
The existence of an amino group in fipronil provides the
possibility for the installation of PPG. Covalent linking of a PPG
with an active molecule is a straightforward way to generate a
photocaged molecule. Many factors should be taken into account
in designing such a photocaged molecule, such as the solubility,