Carmela Negulescu*, V. Magearu**, A Ciucu**
*Carmela Negulescu, Biochimist, Wyeth Whitehall, București
**Prof. dr. V. Magearu, Prof. dr. A Ciucu, Catedra de Chimie Analitică, Facultatea de Chimie, Universitatea din București
Abstract
The importance of colinesterases in clinical toxicological studies
Organophosphate and carbamate pesticides are widely used in agriculture because of their low persistence. However, a high acute toxicity of these compounds creates a need for fast responding detection systems in order to protect human health during manufacturing and application processes and subsequently sensitive systems for reliable control of food products and environment pollution. Because similar compounds were produced as possible nerve poisons, a further area of application isin the military. The mode of action of these pesticides is based on irreversible inhibition of acetylcholinesterase and the same principle is utilized for analysis. Depending on substrate two types of cholinesterase, acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase are widely used for construction of various biosensing devices monitoring the decrease of enzyme activity in the presence of inhibitor.