Acute toxicities of fipronil enantiomers to zebrafish and diamondback moth
氟虫腈对斑马鱼和小菜蛾毒性的手性选择性研究

The two enantiomers of a chiral pesticide may differ in their degradation kinetics in environment and toxicities toward certain species. The enantiomer-specific effects indicate that it would be environmentally friendly to use pesticide formulations with single- or enriched enantiomers that are either more active toward target insects or less toxic to non-target species. In this work, the two enantiomers of a chiral pesticide, fipronil, were separated and their toxicities to a target species, diamondback moth, and a non-target species, zebra fish were examined. It was found that fipronil showed no enantioselective toxicity to both the target and non-target species. As such, using single or enriched fipronil enantiomer formulation is unlikely an effective approach to reduce risks of fipronil to non-target species. This conclusion indirectly supports the new policy of the Ministry of Agriculture of China to ban the agricultural use of fipronil.