Abstract

Natural and anthropogenic activities lead to the degradation of the environment. Exposure to certain natural and xenobiotic compounds has resulted in adverse impact on the health of both environment and living beings. Heavy metals and metalloids are the natural constituents of an ecosystem, which enter the food chain due to global industrialization and various geochemical processes. Even a slight increase in the concentration of these nondegradable contaminants poses a serious threat to organisms. Although a number of physicochemical methods have been proposed and implemented for the remediation of these contaminants in different sites, due to some inherited limitations, these methods remain ineffective and uneconomical. Biological systems, especially microorganisms, find their wide applicability in the bioremediation of heavy metals with different modifications such as bioventing, biosparging, bioaugmentation, and biofiltration. A number of different microorganisms belonging to different groups, such as bacteria, fungi, yeast, and actinomycetes, have been reported in the literature for remediation of these inorganic pollutants. Nowadays, genetic engineering has been exploited for the remediation of these toxic contaminants with the development of genetically engineered microorganisms. These organisms show substantial potential toward remediation using different genetic approaches, such as alteration of enzyme specificity, construction of new pathways, and improvement in bioprocess, along with the use of technology.

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