Quantitative structure-activity relationship of substituted imidazothiadiazoles for their binding against the ecdysone receptor of Sf-9 cells.

Imidazothiadiazoles (ITDs) are a class of potent nonsteroidal ecdysone agonists with larvicidal activity. Previously, we performed the Hansch–Fujita type of quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) analysis for ITD analogs (Yokoi et al., Pestic. Biochem. Physiol. 2015, 120, 40–50). The activity was reasonably explained by hydrophobicity and electronegativity of substituents on the imidazothiadiazole ring system. However, the limited data points (n = 8) hampered the examination of other physicochemical parameters. In the present study, we expanded the library of ITD congeners and evaluated their receptor-binding affinity using intact Sf-9 cells. The QSAR analysis for the expanded set revealed the significance of the third physicochemical parameter, the negative steric effect for long substituents. We also evaluated the larvicidal activity of the synthesized compounds against Spodoptera litura; however, it was not correlated to the binding affinity. The results obtained here suggests that the pharmacokinetic properties must be improved to enhance the larvicidal activity of ITDs.