Polysaccharides synergistic boosting drug loading for reduction pesticide dosage and improve its efficiency

Overuse of pesticides is an urgent issue to be solved in sustainable agriculture. Based on the synergistic drug loading effect of β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) encapsulation and alginate (Alg) cross-linking, a new environment-responsive drug delivery system (TMX-loaded Alg/β-CD) was constructed. The relationship between carrier structure and solubility of thiamethoxam (TMX) was researched by molecular simulation. β-CD has good binding affinity with TMX, which can increase TMX solubility by 40 %. Further co-loading with alginate could double the drug loading of the cyclodextrin inclusion complex up to 41 %. TMX-loaded Alg/β-CD exhibits excellent environment-responsive controlled-release performance, and TMX sustained release time is 7.5 times longer than that of commercial agents. The pest control efficacy of TMX-loaded Alg/β-CD is 20 days longer than that of commercial TMX, and the crops has no pesticide residues after using. This study provides a promising strategy for the commercial application of polysaccharide in pest control and pesticide reduction.