Probiotics as potential detoxification tools for mitigation of pesticides: a mini review

Summary Pesticides play a key role in agriculture and food production by controlling the insects, weeds, plant pathogens and microbial contaminations. Although they are useful in some aspects, their inappropriate application can induce health problems including carcinogenicity, reproductive toxicity, neurodegenerative diseases and disruption of endocrine system. In this respect, efficient strategies should be applied to reduce pesticide residue in foodstuffs. Several methods have been proposed in food processing for reduction of pesticides residue. Recently, detoxification via microorganisms such as lactic acid bacteria and probiotics has been extensively studied and degradation of pesticides through hydrolytic enzymes has been introduced as the possible mechanism and it has been highlighted that some probiotics harbour pesticide‐degrading genes. The aim of this review is to evaluate the efficacy of probiotics in detoxification of pesticides.