Vadodara: The Egyptian queen Cleopatra is said to have been surrounded by a mosquito net. The Romans used a vinegar mixture, while the Mississippi people saw the American beautyberry plant as a protection against mosquito bites.
At present, DEET (N,N-diethyl-m-toulamide) is widely used for: mosquito repellent, Still, mosquito-borne diseases have raised their heads time and time again.
At a time when dengue and chikungunya are on the rise across the country, researchers MS University Have stumbled upon chemical compounds with better mosquito repellent properties than existing commercial products. These compounds are much less toxic to the human body than conventional ones which have their own side effects. In fact, he has also got a patent for this compound named Lactol.
Interestingly, lactol was an accidental discovery when studying plants that animals rub their skin on to keep insects away. “The peculiar structure of lactol aroused curiosity in our minds. Its structural similarity was with nepetalic acid, a natural product present in catnip oil,” said Prof. Pradeep Devta from the Department of Applied Chemistry of MSU’s Faculty of Technology and Engineering.
Interestingly, cats love catnip because it protects them from mosquitoes. Nepetalactone, the essential oil in catnip that gives the plant its distinctive odor, is about 10 times more effective at repelling mosquitoes than DEET—the compound used in most commercial insect repellents.
“DEET, which is the most widely used mosquito repellent, has little toxicity and side effects such as seizures,” he said.
Devta and his PhD student Gautam Patel have designed a series of chemical compounds lactol (formula-II) and its derivatives (formula-I) that have better mosquito repellent activity than existing commercial products.
Nepetalic acid and related natural products have insect repellent properties.
“Nepetalactone and nepetalactol repel some disease-causing insects. For example, nepetalactol is able to repel Aedes albopictus (Asian tiger mosquito or forest mosquito). Felidae (cats) usually chase and hunt other animals. does.
This requires a steady or slow movement, which allows the insects to bite cats more easily. But cats keep insects away by licking or rubbing their fur with plants containing nepetalactone,” he said.
“The compounds we developed have very low cytotoxicity (toxicity to humans) compared to existing commercial products such as pyrethroids, organochlorines and organophosphorus compounds.” The researchers evaluated the insecticidal activity of these compounds on Anopheles culiciphages (one of the major vectors of malaria in the Indian subcontinent) using standard WHO-specified adult susceptibility testing and tunneling testing.
He said, “All compounds exhibited excellent mosquito repellent activity. Furthermore when all these compounds were tested for their cytotoxicity on a human lung cell line, they showed little to the human body compared to existing ones.” were found to be toxic,” he said.
At present, DEET (N,N-diethyl-m-toulamide) is widely used for: mosquito repellent, Still, mosquito-borne diseases have raised their heads time and time again.
At a time when dengue and chikungunya are on the rise across the country, researchers MS University Have stumbled upon chemical compounds with better mosquito repellent properties than existing commercial products. These compounds are much less toxic to the human body than conventional ones which have their own side effects. In fact, he has also got a patent for this compound named Lactol.
Interestingly, lactol was an accidental discovery when studying plants that animals rub their skin on to keep insects away. “The peculiar structure of lactol aroused curiosity in our minds. Its structural similarity was with nepetalic acid, a natural product present in catnip oil,” said Prof. Pradeep Devta from the Department of Applied Chemistry of MSU’s Faculty of Technology and Engineering.
Interestingly, cats love catnip because it protects them from mosquitoes. Nepetalactone, the essential oil in catnip that gives the plant its distinctive odor, is about 10 times more effective at repelling mosquitoes than DEET—the compound used in most commercial insect repellents.
“DEET, which is the most widely used mosquito repellent, has little toxicity and side effects such as seizures,” he said.
Devta and his PhD student Gautam Patel have designed a series of chemical compounds lactol (formula-II) and its derivatives (formula-I) that have better mosquito repellent activity than existing commercial products.
Nepetalic acid and related natural products have insect repellent properties.
“Nepetalactone and nepetalactol repel some disease-causing insects. For example, nepetalactol is able to repel Aedes albopictus (Asian tiger mosquito or forest mosquito). Felidae (cats) usually chase and hunt other animals. does.
This requires a steady or slow movement, which allows the insects to bite cats more easily. But cats keep insects away by licking or rubbing their fur with plants containing nepetalactone,” he said.
“The compounds we developed have very low cytotoxicity (toxicity to humans) compared to existing commercial products such as pyrethroids, organochlorines and organophosphorus compounds.” The researchers evaluated the insecticidal activity of these compounds on Anopheles culiciphages (one of the major vectors of malaria in the Indian subcontinent) using standard WHO-specified adult susceptibility testing and tunneling testing.
He said, “All compounds exhibited excellent mosquito repellent activity. Furthermore when all these compounds were tested for their cytotoxicity on a human lung cell line, they showed little to the human body compared to existing ones.” were found to be toxic,” he said.
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