ABSTRACT
Pesticides are organic chemicals used to control the insect vectors in agriculture and are intended for increasing agricultural yield, soil productivity, and product quality with minimum loss of agricultural products. Due to unplanned and indiscriminate use, only 10% of applied pesticides reach the target organism and the remaining high percentage is deposited on non-target areas such as soil, water, and sediments, causing serious environmental pollution. The various biological systems of microorganisms have been used to biotransform pesticides. Bacteria and fungi are the major entities involved in pesticide biodegradation. Organochlorine pesticides are synthetic organic compounds containing at least one covalently bonded chlorine atom and are insecticides in nature containing primarily carbon, hydrogen, and chlorine. The organochlorine pesticides undergo degradation through two major pathways: reductive dechlorination that takes place under anaerobic conditions and dehydrochlorination that occurs aerobically. Carbamates are biotransformed into various products in consequence of several processes such as hydrolysis, biodegradation, oxidation, photolysis, biotransformation, and metabolic reactions in living organisms.
