Resistance in insects: the role of metabolism and the possible use of synergists.

THE USE OF SYNERGISTS TO PREVENT DETOXIFICATION RAISES TWO PRINCIPAL PROBLEMS: (1) the importance of detoxification as a resistance mechanism and the extent to which synergists could contribute to a solution of the resistance problem, and (2) the role of detoxification as a cause of selectivity, and whether the loss in selectivity that might result from the use of synergists would be a disadvantage. If insecticides could be combined with detoxification-blocking synergists, a much wider range of insecticides might become available for use.This paper also discusses the relative importance of different routes of detoxification, whether to use a constant synergist-insecticide ratio, and some recent work carried out in the author's laboratory on microsomal oxidation of paraoxon and on the synergistic action of P=S compounds.