Shared Plant-human Biology: Herbicide Effects and New Biomarkers Perspectives.
de Souza Espindola A, Parks CG, Moreira JC
Summary
PubMedWhy it matters This matters because the herbicides sprayed on your lawn, your food crops, and your local park may be quietly disrupting the same biological machinery in your body — and in the gut bacteria that keep you healthy — long before any obvious symptoms appear.
Plants and people share some of the same biological tools, and certain weed-killers are designed to disable those tools in plants. Scientists have now mapped out which of those shared tools get hit in the human body too, finding that some control our immune system and others are critical for the trillions of bacteria living in our gut. When those gut bacteria lose their biological tools to herbicide exposure, it may set off a chain reaction linked to chronic diseases like inflammatory bowel conditions and metabolic disorders.
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Herbicides don't just kill weeds — they hit biological targets that humans and plants share. This review identifies specific enzymes disrupted by herbicide exposure in humans and links them to immune dysfunction and gut microbiome damage, proposing these enzymes as early warning biomarkers for herbicide-related disease.
Key Findings
Four key enzymes — HPPD, ACC, GS, and PPO — are confirmed molecular targets of herbicides in both plants and humans, making them candidate biomarkers for early detection of herbicide-induced harm.
Several of these shared enzymes play active roles in regulating the immune response, meaning herbicide exposure may disrupt immune function through direct enzyme inhibition.
Herbicide target enzymes are also present in gut microbiota bacteria and fungi, providing a plausible mechanistic link between herbicide exposure and intestinal dysbiosis, which is increasingly associated with chronic diseases.
Abstract Preview
Herbicide exposure has been associated with acute poisoning and several chronic diseases. Humans and plants share biological processes targeted by herbicides. Investigating these shared pathways ca...
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