With the long-term excessive and frequent use of pesticides, the problem of pesticide-resistance has become increasingly acute, which has brought huge economic losses to agriculture. It’s urgent to understand how these pesticides work and the mechanism of pesticide-resistance. A study by Prof. Yuchi’s team from Tianjin University’s School of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology identified the binding site of a popular insecticide and revealed the resistance mechanism of the pests. Their results have been reported in the journal Pest Management Science (JCR Q1) with the titleHomology modeling and docking study of diamondback moth ryanodine receptor reveals the mechanisms for channel activation, insecticide binding and resistance, Pest Management Science, 2019, DOI: 10.1002/ps. 5640).

Professor Yuchi's team focuses on the research of insecticide target proteins. Combining structural biology, biochemistry, biophysics and computational biology tools, the team studied one of the most important insecticide targets, calcium channel ryanodine receptors, from a destructive agricultural pest named the diamondback moth. The investigation revealed the activation mechanism of the channel under physiological conditions, the recognition and binding mechanism of the diamide insecticides, and the molecular mechanism of resistance mutations recently identified in many countries, including China, USA, Japan, Thailand, etc. This result provides an important theoretical basis for the research and development of novel green pesticides.

By the School of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology

Editors: Eva Yin & Doris Harrington