Carbamate pesticides and their biological degradation: Prospects for enzymatic bioremediation

Abstract

Diverse carbamate compounds are widely used as insecticides, herbicides and fungicides in agriculture around the world. Environmental and human health concerns about off-target and off-site residues of various pesticides have sparked interest in the development of technologies for their detoxification. One promising technology for this purpose is enzymatic bioremediation, which uses formulations of detoxifying enzymes to clean up residues in contaminated environments. Here we review the feasibility of developing carbamate detoxifying enzymes as bioremediation agents.