Ketol-acid reductoisomerase (KARI; EC 1.1.1.86) catalyzes the second common step in branched-chain amino acid biosynthesis. The catalyzed process consists of two stages, the first of which is an alkyl migration from one carbon atom to its neighbouring atom. The likely transition state is a cyclopropane derivative, thus a series of new cyclopropane derivatives, such as 1-cyano-N-substituted-cyclopropanecarboxamide, were designed and synthesized. Their structures were verified by (1)H NMR, FTIR spectrum, MS and elemental analysis. The K(i) values of active compounds 2, 4b against rice KARI were 95.30+/-13.71, 207.9+/-21.99 microM, respectively. The X-ray crystal structure of compound 4a was also determined. Auto-Dock was used to predict the binding mode of 4a. This was done by analyzing the interaction of the compounds 4a with the active sites of spinach KARI. This result was in accord with the result analyzed by the frontier molecular orbital theory.