Novel aurone-derived piperazine sulfonamides: Development and mechanisms of action as immunostimulants against plant bacterial diseases.

Bacterial diseases pose a significant threat to the sustainable production of crops. Given the unsatisfactory performance and poor eco-compatibility of conventional bactericides, here we present a series of newly structured bactericides that are inspiringly designed by aurone found in plants of the Asteraceae family. These aurone-derived compounds contain piperazine sulfonamide motifs and have shown promising in vitro performance against Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae, Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzicola and Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri, in particular, compound II23 achieved minimum half-maximal effective concentrations of 1.06, 0.89, and 1.78 μg/mL, respectively. In vivo experiments conducted in a greenhouse environment further revealed that II23 offers substantial protective and curative effects ranging between 68.93 and 70.29% for rice bacterial leaf streak and 53.17-64.43% for citrus bacterial canker, which stands in activity compared with lead compound aurone and commercial thiodiazole copper. Additional physiological and biochemical analyses, coupled with transcriptomics, have verified that II23 enhances defense enzyme activities and chlorophyll levels in rice. Significantly, it also stimulates the accumulation of abscisic acid (ABA) and upregulates the expression of key genes OsPYL/RCAR5, OsBIPP2C1, and OsABF1, thereby activating the ABA signaling pathway in rice plants under biological stress from bacterial infections.