Performance comparison of free and immobilised chicken liver esterase inhibited by four different pesticides

BACKGROUND: In enzyme inhibition‐based biosensors for the detection of organophosphate and carbamate pesticides, the biological element is the immobilised esterase which is inhibited selectively by the pesticides. The free chicken liver esterase, which possesses comparable inhibition response to the pesticides as AChE, has been reported. However, the responses to the pesticides are different between the free and immobilised enzyme due to the diffusion limitation. Therefore, in this study four typical pesticides were selected to compare the ability of free and (ion exchange) immobilised chicken enzyme for pesticide detection and reasons for the difference were investigated. RESULTS: For dichlorvos and malathion at a concentration of 0.1 mg L^?1, the inhibition of the immobilised enzyme was 26.98% and 48.72%, respectively, higher than that for the free enzyme, while the percentage inhibition of free and immobilised enzyme differed very little for trichlorfon at 0.1 mg L^?1. In the meantime, carbaryl at a concentration of 2.5 mg L^?1 showed a 17.72% inhibition for immobilised enzyme which was 13.64% higher than that for the free enzyme. The Michaelis constant of immobilised enzyme was lower than that of the free one and suitable pH values for the free and immobilised enzyme were 7.5 and 8.0, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The sensitivity of chicken liver esterase to the pesticide inhibition could be improved by immobilisation. Smaller K_m and a lower pH for the micro‐environment of immobilised enzyme should result in higher percentage inhibition compared with that of the free enzyme. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry