Tobacco mosaic virus
(TMV) has caused huge economic losses to tobacco,
pepper, cucumber, and ornamental crops all over the world. However,
few effective antiviral agents were developed and applied to control
such plant disease. It is challenging to find an anti-TMV agent which
is highly effective, less toxic, and environmentally friendly. In
this work, a series of ferulic acid ester-containing sulfonamide moieties
were designed and synthesized, and the antiviral activities of these
compounds against TMV were evaluated. The anti-TMV biological activity
test showed that the target compounds showed excellent anti-TMV activity
in vitro
and
in vivo
. In particular, compound
2
has excellent anti-TMV activity at 500 μg/mL, which
is higher than that of the control drug ribavirin. The preliminary
mechanism research results showed that compound
2
can
obviously destroy the morphology of the virions to show excellent
activity. The results show that the ferulic acid ester-containing
sulfonamide moiety deserves further research and development.