Summary: Organochlorine pesticides (chlordane, aldrine, lindane, dieldrine, DDT, etc.) are most dangerous chemical pollutants of the environment. They belong to group of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), because have high chemical stability toward both abiotic and biotic degradation. These compounds have high lipophility; therefore they very simply concentrated in plants and animal tissues, and then incorporated into the food chain. These xenobiotics have immune- and gonadotoxicity, its simply permeate through the membrane barriers and cause the irreversible changes: the damage of nerve tissues, initiation of cancer and endocrine diseases. As a danger for health the using of organochlorine pesticides is prohibited by direction of UN.
In Georgia danger of environment pollution by organochlorine compounds is causing by obsolete pesticides or pesticides carrying in illegally. According to official data in soil and water the contents of some pesticides are very higher than limited concentrations.
For decision of this problem is necessary the carry out of perfect monitoring and the foundation of remediation technologies of polluted environment.
Nowadays, the most effective biotechnology among the clean-up and long-term protection methods of the polluted environment is phytoremediation, which includes the planting of specially selected plants with high detoxification potential around the chemically polluted sites.
The main biochemical criteria of plant selection for phytoremediation technologies are activities of enzymatic systems participating in processes of xenobiotics transformation and utilization. These enzymes are typical for plant cell metabolism: oxidases, reductases, dehalogenases, esterases, transferases, ATP-binding cassette transporters, etc. The high activities of these enzymes during xenobiotic influence process determine the total detoxification ability of plant.
For monitoring, ecological risk assessment and determination of remediation arrangements of environment pollution is very important the bioindication method, which quickly and exactly indicates the degree of toxicant influence on environment. Data on the use of higher plants in bioindication are very exiguous. Especially it is interesting the determination of degree of toxicant influence on NO-synthase activity. This is key enzyme in plant adaptation processes, but its participation in plant response to xenobiotic influence and detoxification process at all is not investigated.

Foreign Collaborator
Dr. Barbara Zeeb (Canada)