TY  - JOUR
T1  - Building a Shared Ontology of Insecticide Modes of Action for Molecular Entomology, Resistance Interpretation, and Cross-Class Innovation
A1  - Kwame Mensah
A1  - Kojo Asante
A1  - Linda Owusu
A1  - Noah Williams
JF  - Entomology and Applied Science Letters
JO  - Entomol Appl Sci Lett
SN  - 2349-2864
Y1  - 2025
VL  - 12
IS  - 4
DO  - 10.51847/wW3DFb7XIp
SP  - 80
EP  - 90
N2  - Insecticide mode-of-action classification is central to molecular-target interpretation, compound discovery, resistance management, and the organization of evidence for decision-making, yet a single class label often compresses biologically distinct claims. Shared target families may contain different subunits, binding sites, ligand poses, functional effects, physiological outcomes, and resistance relationships, while strong target-engagement evidence may still fail to establish organism-level efficacy. This article develops an original, explicitly non-validated insecticide mode-of-action ontology by integrating evidence on classification history, molecular-target hierarchy, binding processes, cellular and physiological consequences, resistance mechanisms, cross-class relationships, and context-dependent outcomes. The proposed approach represents mode of action as an evidence-bearing chain rather than a chemically or operationally defined category. It separates compound and chemotype, species-qualified target, binding event, functional molecular perturbation, cellular response, physiological phenotype, conditional efficacy, and resistance determinant, while attaching method, biological context, provenance, directness, and uncertainty to each relation. The strongest defensible synthesis is that mode-of-action interpretation requires convergence across these layers, but the required evidence is relation-specific and cannot be replaced by a universal threshold. Structural, biochemical, genetic, cellular, and organismal findings remain uneven across compounds and species; some mechanisms are unresolved, and the ontology has not undergone external annotation, prospective case testing, or decision-use evaluation. Its immediate value is therefore conceptual and organizational: it provides a shared structure for making non-equivalence explicit, exposing missing causal links, and generating role-specific evidence views. Future development should prioritize governed definitions, interoperable identifiers, blinded annotation exercises, competency questions, and prospective tests that evaluate reliability without treating ontology placement as regulatory or resistance-management validation.
UR  - https://easletters.com/article/building-a-shared-ontology-of-insecticide-modes-of-action-for-molecular-entomology-resistance-inter-dndunvkxaqocpez
ER  -