Aggregation arrestant pheromone of the German cockroach,Blattella germanica (L.) (Dictyoptera: Blattellidae): Isolation and structure elucidation of blattellastanoside-A and -B.

The aggregation pheromone of the German cockroach,Blattella germanica, consists of attractant and arrestant, which can be detected by olfactometer and choice-chamber assay, respectively. Both were extracted from the frass-contaminated filter paper being used as a shelter. They were separated by solvent partition withn-butanol and water. The arrestant from then-butanol phase was purified by open column chromatography and then successive HPLC isolated two major arrestant components. Spectral evidence from SI-MS, HR-EI-MS, and NMR experiments with pulse techniques provided possible structures as 1-(6α-chloro-4β,5β-epoxy-5β-stigmast-3β-yl)-β-D-glucopyranoside and 1-(6α-chloro-5β-hydroxy-5β-stigmast-3β-yl)-β-D-glu-copyranoside, denoted as blattellastanoside-A and blattellastanoside-B, respectively. They represented arrestant activity as median effective doses (ED50) at 0.044 (A) and 3.2 (B) nmol on 1.0 cm(2) of Whatman No. 1 filter paper.