Bioavailability of Bound Pesticide Residues and Potential Toxicologic Consequences

Abstract

ConclusionsThe use of 14C-labeled pesticides has made us aware of the existence of bound residues in edible tissue and plants. These residues would escape detection by the conventional analytical methods and would result in an underestimation of the edible tissue or plant burden of total pesticide residues. The methodology for the analysis of bound pesticide residues is still in the developmental stage. The total 14C-bound residues in tissues and plants are usually estimated by combustion of the extracted material to yield 14CO2. The high temperature distillation technique and supercritical methanol may provide a possible means for the chemical identification of bound residues. However, the application of these techniques to bound residue analysis of other pesticides has not been fully explored.A major portion of bound pesticide residues in plant tissues may be associated with lignin. Thus, lignin formation in plants may serve as a system for plants to store pesticide residues by incorporating them into i...