QSAR Study of Biologically Active Essential Oils against Beetles Infesting the Walnut in Catamarca, Argentina

Abstract

Essential oils from six species of aromatic plants collected in the Catamarca Province of Argentina were evaluated for their chemical composition and repellent and insecticidal activities against beetles of the genus Carpophilus (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae) and Oryzaephilus (Coleoptera: Silvanidae) that infest the local walnut production. Experimental data were analyzed using generalized estimating equations, with normal distribution and the identity link function. From the spectral information from the tested essential oils, we worked their molecular modeling as mixtures by developing mixture descriptors (D mix ) that combined the molecular descriptor of each component in the mixture (d i ) and its relative concentration (x i ), i.e., D mix = f(d i , x i ). The application of chemoinformatic approaches determined that a combination of mixture descriptors related to molecular size, branchedness, charge distribution, and electronegativity were useful to explain the bioactivity profile against Carpophilus spp. and Oryzaephilus spp. The reported models were rigorously validated using stringent statistical parameters and essential oils reported with repellent activity against other beetle species from the Nitidulidae and Silvanidae families. This model confirmed each essential oil as a repellent with a comparable performance to the experimental reports.