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DEGRADATION OF MALATHION BY SALT-MARSH MICROORGANISMS
Citation:
Bourquin, A. DEGRADATION OF MALATHION BY SALT-MARSH MICROORGANISMS. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/J-77/020 (NTIS PB268571), 1976.
Description:
Numerous bacteria from a salt-marsh environment are capable of degrading malathion, an organophosphate insecticide, when supplied with additional nutrients as energy and carbon sources. Seven isolates exhibited ability (48-90%) to degrade malathion as a sole carbon source. Gas and thin-layer chromatography and infrared spectroscopy confirmed malathion to be degraded via malathion-monocarboxylic acid to the dicarboxylic acid and then to various phosphothionates. These techniques also identified desmethyl-malathion, phosphorothionates, and four-carbon dicarboxylic acids as degradation products formed as a result of phosphatase activity.