A theoretical approach to the mechanism of biological oxidation of organophosphorus pesticides

Organophosphorus pesticides are the most common classes involved in poisonings related to pesticides. We used enzymatic activity of chloroperoxidase on the metabolism of some phosphorothioate pesticides published previously and molecular mechanics methods to perform a theoretical approach of the mechanism of biological oxidation of this class of pesticides. The molecular structure of eight pesticides were optimized by molecular mechanics methods using the CAChe program package for biomolecules, ver. 3.11 (Oxford Molecular Ltd., Campbell, CA). Total energy resulted from the structure optimization process and the partial charges of both phosphorus and sulfur were computed for every pesticide. Phosphorus partial charge and enzymatic activity were significantly related by linear regression analysis (r=0.82, P