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Environmental pollutants generate harmful conditions for living organisms, including humans. This accounts for the growing interest to early warning tools for detection of adverse biological responses to pollutants in both humans and wildlife. Molecular and cellular biomarkers of pollution meet this requirement. A pollution biomarker is defined as an alteration in a biological response occurring at molecular, cellular or physiological levels which can be related to exposure to or toxic effects of environmental chemicals.Pollution biomarkers have known a growing development in human and environmental biomonitoring representing a valuable tool for early pollutant exposure detection or early effect assessment (exposure/effect biomarkers).The review discusses the recent developments in the use of pollution biomarker in human and environmental biomonitoring and analyzes future perspectives in the application of this tool such as their potentiality for bridging human and environmental issued studies.

Background: Carbonic anhydrase is a metalloenzyme extensively present in nature. In animals, it is involved in several functions such as respiration, pH homeostasis, salt transport, metabolic reactions, calcification, bone resorption. In recent years, the CA wide distribution, relevance in several physiological processes, involvement in several pathological conditions, as well as sensitivity to chemical pollutants has driven the research on CA based biomarkers. Objective: The review is addressed to analyze the potential applicability of CA as biomarker in a variety of fields, from human health to environmental sciences. Results: The main studies in this field are analyzed and discussed in the present review exploring several areas of interest, from clinic to environmental monitoring. The review also details interesting research patents, which have yielded in the last years in this research field. Conclusion: In conclusion, the review highlights that CA is becoming a promising biomarker in several areas of interest and outlines that the research on CA based biomarkers have opened new perspective for translation of advances in basic science into innovative applications and patents.

The measurement of cellular and sub cellular responses to chemical contaminants (referred to as biomarkers) in living organisms represents a recent tool in environmental monitoring. It answers to the need to detect exposure and to assess effects of pollutants on biota. Biomarkers have recently become an integral component of environmental monitoring programmes of marine environments in several countries as a supplement to the commonly used contaminant monitoring. The review reports and analyzes new insights and perspectives in the biomarker approach, including its recent application to the detection of the impact of biological pollution in marine environment.