Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health Sciences Vol. 3(1) pp. 014-017, January 2011 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/JTEHS ISSN 2006-9820 ©2011 Academic Journals Full Research Paper Use of biochemical biomarkers in the ecological risk assessment of permetrin pesticide exposure Ethelbert U. Ezeji 1 *, Ernest A. Anyalogbu 1 and Christopher M. Duru 2 1 Department of Biotechnology, Federal University of Technology, P.M.B 1526, Owerri, Nigeria. 2 Department of Biology, Federal University of Technology, P.M.B 1526, Owerri, Nigeria. Accepted 08 November, 2010 Biochemical biomarkers were used in ecological risk assessment of pesticide exposure. The experiments were carried out on six weeks old poultry birds (Gallus domesticus) weighing between 400 and 600 g (12 birds) and were divided into four groups of three birds each. The poultry birds were exposed for four weeks to different concentrations (1, 5 and 10%) of a locally manufactured insect powder called ‘Rambo’ which contains 0.6% permethrin. The control group had no pesticide added to their feed. Results of the experiment showed a significant increase (p < 0.05) in the activity of Alanine transaminase (ALT) at 5% (42.00 ± 1.00 IU/L) and 10% (42.67 ± 1.00 IU/L) pesticide contamination, when compared with the control (37.00 ± 1.00 IU/L). Aspartate transminase (AST) activity was significantly higher (p < 0.05) at 10% pesticide contamination (12.33 ± 0.66 IU/L) as against the control, whereas alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity was significantly (p < 0.05) at all levels of pesticide contamination when compared with the control. There were no significant differences (p> 0.05) in the levels of total and conjugate bilirubin and creatinine between the treatments and the control, while urea showed significant difference at 5 (22.38 ± 0.42 mg/dl) and 10% (25.39 ± 0.50 mg/dl) pesticide contamination, respectively. Lipid peroxidation and lactate dehydrogenase showed significant differences at all levels of pesticide contamination, indicating possible oxidative stress. As such, results of this experiment support the use of biochemical biomarkers in the ecological risk assessment of pesticide contaminated environment. Key words: Biochemical biomarkers, ecological risk assessment, pesticide contamination, non-target animals, poultry birds. INTRODUCTION The use of pesticides in agriculture has become important considering the huge loses farmers experience due to the ravaging effect of agricultural pests. The large scale use of pesticides in agriculture has proven effective in controlling and minimizing losses due to pests. Continuous and indiscriminate use of pesticides has been reported to cause severe environmental problems and is a health hazard for both humans and animals (Perring and Mellanby, 1975; Partanen et al., 1999). Bioaccu- mulation of pesticides in the food chain can lead to potentially adverse effect in humans and useful animals due to their putative toxic effect (Palmeira, 1999). There is a need to devise an accurate and effective *Corresponding author. Email: ucheezeji@yahoo.com. Tel: +234-803-342-9193. way of monitoring the effects of pesticide exposure to humans and the environment. Until recently, the most common end point measured when evaluating toxicity of chemicals were mortality values (Otitoju and Onwurah, 2007). Mortality values can only provide a measure of short-term acute toxicity and are not always useful for predicting the ecological consequences of exposure to a particular chemical (Neuhauser et al., 1984). The use of biomarkers in accessing the risk of environmental exposure has been on the increase (Albertini, 1998). Biomarkers are an integral part of biomonitoring and they have characteristics that are objectively measured and evaluated as indicators of normal biological processes, pathogenic processes or pharmacological responses to therapeutic intervention. This study was undertaken to investigate the effects of a pyrethroid insecticide marketed in Nigeria as ‘Rambo’ on some biochemical parameters of poultry birds