A Yeast-Based Probe to Detect Active Concentration of Herbicide (A Study for the Italian Project "ALERT")

The "ALERT"project (http://www.alert2015.funded by the Italian Ministry for Economic Development and pivots on the transfer to feld situations of the sensor/biosensor platform BEST, patented by ISS. This study was carried out with the yeast system to understand the acute and chronic efects of diuron aka DCMU (herbicide inhibiting the photosystem II in the plants). The test investigated the possible self-detoxifcation capacity of yeast cells: aerobic respiration was taken as the toxicological end-point. Inhibition was shown by increased dissolved oxygen (ppm) after the addition of herbicide, which gave a positive or negative percentage of interference value, after exposure for diferent time period to herbicide.