Agrochemicals: A Brief Overview
Dongyou Liu in Handbook of Foodborne Diseases, 2018
While herbicides affect biochemical pathways present in plants and often not in humans, all chemicals used as insecticides target the nervous system of insects, which is not so different from that of mammals (11). As a consequence, insecticides are not species selective with regard to targets of toxicity, and humans are highly sensitive to their adverse effects. Among all pesticides, insecticides have the highest acute toxicity toward nontarget species, and some (e.g., the organophosphates) are involved in a great number of human poisonings and deaths each year. The principal classes of insecticides and their main toxicological characteristics are described in this section (see also Table 107.2). For additional information, the reader should refer to Costa (6), Costa et al. (54), Hayes and Laws (8), Chambers and Levi (55), Krieger (9,10), Gupta (56), and Satoh and Gupta (57).
Pesticides and Chronic Diseases
William J. Rea, Kalpana D. Patel in Reversibility of Chronic Disease and Hypersensitivity, Volume 4, 2017
Insecticides are generally classified into several categories. Organochlorines include such products as lindane, chlordane, dieldrin, aldrin, hexachlorobenzene (HCB), heptachlor, heptachlor epoxide, endrin, endosulfan, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE), benzene hexachloride (BHC), and others. OPs include parathion, malathion, diazinon, and many others.11–13 Carbamates are similar to OPs in that they interfere with cholinesterase, and they include aldicarb, carbofuran, and carbaryl. Other classes are pyrethrums, pyrethroids, pyrethrins and their chemical relatives, which include permethrin, allethrin, fenothrin, and others. Arsenicals, which include cacodylic acid, monosodium methyl arsonate, methane arsenic acid, and many others, constitute another distinct group of pesticides. Further, pesticide families include pentachlorophenol (PCP), nitrophenolic herbicides, chlorophenoxy compounds, paraquat, diquat, thiocarbamates and dithiocarbamates, and others. There are approximately 100 pesticides; each general category of some common pesticides is discussed separately. The majority have been found to trigger chemical sensitivity or propagate it.
Rationale and technique of malaria control
David A Warrell, Herbert M Gilles in Essential Malariology, 2017
All insecticides are, to some degree, harmful to animals and to humans, but there is a major difference between the toxicity of a given compound and the hazard that it presents. Highly toxic compounds are excluded from use in vector control because of the difficulty of reducing human exposure to them. A measure of potential toxicity of a given insecticide to humans or other mammals is the oral or dermal LD50 value, i.e. the estimate of the amount of toxicant per kilogram of body weight required to kill 50 per cent of experimental animals (usually rats) used for testing (see Table 6.4). According to this table, parathion (an agricultural insecticide) is the most toxic and temephos the least toxic organophosphorous compound if taken by mouth. The apparently low toxicity of malathion may be misleading because some formulations may become toxic in tropical conditions, especially if not stored properly. Such an unexpected change in an insecticide with a previous good safety record was seen in 1976 in Pakistan, where about 2500 cases of illness occurred among spraypersons, five of whom died. An investigation showed that the major toxic component was isomalathion, formed in malathion dispersible powder during prolonged storage in tropical conditions. This unfortunate episode, while revealing a new problem, indicated ways for the improvement of insecticide formulations.
The role of UDP-glycosyltransferases in xenobioticresistance
Published in Drug Metabolism Reviews, 2022
Diana Dimunová, Petra Matoušková, Radka Podlipná, Iva Boušová, Lenka Skálová
The application of chemical-based insecticides is the primary strategy for the control of many insect pest species. However, this strategy has resulted in the evolution of resistance, leading to considerable yield losses of crops. Based on the Arthropod Pesticide Resistance Database (https://www.pesticideresistance.org/), one of the most successful species reported to having developed resistance to 56 different insecticides is Leptinotarsa decemlineata, the Colorado potato beetle, a destructive pest of solanaceous crops such as the potato and tomato. Understanding the mechanisms of insecticide resistance would aid in the development of novel chemicals and other strategies of pest control. Among such mechanisms, several metabolic enzymes that transform chemical insecticides to less toxic compounds have been identified, including cytochromes P450 (Feyereisen et al. 2015; Cui et al. 2016; Jin et al. 2019), glutathione S-transferases (Hu, Zhang, et al. 2019), and esterases (Mao et al. 2021).
Protective effects of extracts of lichen Dirinaria consimilis (Stirton) D.D. Awasthi in bifenthrin- and diazinon-induced oxidative stress in rat erythrocytes in vitro
Published in Drug and Chemical Toxicology, 2022
Vinay Bharadwaj Tatipamula, Biljana Kukavica
Insecticides (including both larvicides and ovicides) are compounds used to kill insects, commonly labeled as carbamates, organophosphates, and organochlorines. For decades, the utilization of insecticides in agriculture, medicine, and public health has affected environmental and human health (Ehlers et al.1993). Moreover, the discovery of new insecticides having more toxicity and fast diffusion into the surrounding environments has required finding their potentially hazardous effects on human health. These hazardous substances have turned into an integral portion of the ecological unit, even though most of them are extremely poisonous not only to humans but also to all living organisms, including mammals (Misra and Pandey 2005, Flint and Van Den Bosch 2012). Previous investigations on the mechanism of action of insecticides proposed that they mostly act by affecting the nervous system and organelle enzyme activities, thereby harming the equilibrium between antioxidants and pro-oxidants in the body and provoking oxidative stress (Singh et al.2001, Mossa et al.2014, Syed et al.2017).
Impact of intrauterine exposure to the insecticide coragen on the developmental and genetic toxicity in female albino rats
Published in Egyptian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 2022
Amel Ramadan Omar, Ahmed Emam Dakrory, Marwa Mohamed Abdelaal, Heba Bassiony
Despite the potential adverse effects of pesticides on the living organisms including human and the environment, they are still widely used in agriculture due to their benefits to control insects-borne diseases, increase agricultural productivity and control of various pests [1,2]. Pesticides could be taken into the body through oral, inhalation or dermal routes after being ingested in food, drinking water, residential or occupational ways [3]. The biological activity and severity of the pesticides’ toxicity impacts are determined by the type of chemical, the dose, the route and the period of exposure [3]. There are numerous chemical classes of pesticides, which may be insecticide, fungicide or herbicide. Ryanodine is a toxic natural alkaloid isolated from plant Ryania speciose and is best used as insecticide [4]. Chemically synthetic ryanodine compounds such as chlorantraniliprole, flubendiamide, cyantraniliprole, cyclaniliprole and tetraniliprole, are called diamide insecticides that opens muscular calcium channels [5]. Chlorantraniliprole with 18.5% or 20% SC active ingredient in insecticide, has the trade name coragen, that we have investigated in our study. Coragen is being used to fight various types of flies and their larvae [6–8].
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