The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a ligand-dependent transcription factor that mediates many of the biological and toxicological actions of structurally diverse chemicals, including the ubiquitous environmental contaminant 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin. Here, we have examined the ability of diuron, a widely used herbicide, and several structurally related substituted phenylureas to b...

Diuron is one of the most widely herbicide used worldwide, which can undergo degradation producing three primary metabolites: 3,4-dichlorophenylurea, 3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1-methylurea, and 3,4-dichloroaniline. Since the persistence of diuron and its by-products in ecosystems involves risk of toxicity to environment and human health, a reliable quantitative method for simultaneous monitoring o...

We have used the diuron-resistant Dr2 mutant of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii which is altered in the 32 kilodalton Q(B)-protein at amino acid 219 (valine to isoleucine), to investigate the interactions of herbicides and plastoquinone with the 32 kilodalton Q(B)-protein. The data contained in this report demonstrate that the effects of this mutation are different from those of the more completely c...

Arthrobacter globiformis D47 was shown to degrade a range of substituted phenylurea herbicides in soil. This strain contained two plasmids of approximately 47 kb (pHRIM620) and 34 kb (pHRIM621). Plasmid-curing experiments produced plasmid-free strains as well as strains containing either the 47- or the 34-kb plasmid. The strains were tested for their ability to degrade diuron, which demonstrate...

Mycobacterium brisbanense strain JK1, a bacterium capable of degrading the herbicide diuron, was isolated from herbicide-exposed soil. A gene/enzyme system with diuron hydrolase activity was isolated from this strain and named PUH (phenylurea hydrolase) B (puhB/PuhB) because of its close similarity to the previously characterized PUH A (puhA/PuhA). Both PUHs were heterologously expressed, purif...

Este trabalho descreve a construção e teste de um sistema simples de extração pressurizada com solvente (PSE). Uma mistura de acetona:água (80:20), a 80 oC e 103,5 bar, foi utilizada para extrair dois herbicidas (Diuron e Bromacil) de uma amostra de solo contaminado. Os herbicidas foram identificados e quantificados por cromatografia líquida de alta eficiência acoplada a detector por arranjo de...

Photosystem II (PSII) herbicides have been detected in nearshore tropical waters such as those of the Great Barrier Reef and may add to the pressure posed by runoff containing sediments and nutrients to threatened seagrass habitats. There is a growing number of studies into the potential effects of herbicides on seagrass, generally using large experimental setups with potted plants. Here we des...

The addition of organic amendments to soil increases soil organic matter content and stimulates soil microbial activity. Thus, processes affecting herbicide fate in the soil should be affected. The objective of this work was to investigate the effect of olive oil production industry organic waste (alperujo) on soil sorption-desorption, degradation, and leaching of diuron [3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)...

conclusions results showed that ann is a powerful tool for predicting sorption coefficients using soil organic carbon content variations. results the multilayer perceptron (mlp) artificial neural networks (ann) model with 1-6-1 layout, predicted nearly 98% of the variance of kd as well as 94% of the koc variations with soil organic carbon content. materials and methods data of this study were d...

The effect of the external pH in the range of 5.5 to 8.0 on the activity of three PSII herbicides (diuron, atrazine and dinoseb) was studied in isolated thylakoid membranes by means of prompt and delayed fluorescence induction kinetics. Well-expressed pH dependence was established for prompt fluorescence parameters (Fv/Fm, Fi/Fm) as well as for delayed fluorescence parameters (I1, I2). Two type...