Microorganism remediation strategies towards heavy metals

Abstract

Heavy metal pollution, because of its high toxicity, non-biodegradability and biological enrichment, has seriously threatened the health of human beings and the stability of ecological system. The immobilization, removal and detoxification of active heavy metal ions in natural environment can be achieved through microbial activities. Because of its outstanding advantages including high efficiency, low cost and environment friendly, the development of high-efficiency biological techniques to clean up toxic metal wastes have already drawn scientists’ great attention. After millions of years of evolution, some microorganisms are resistant to heavy metal ions and able to remediate heavy metal pollution. However, the relationship of microbial resistance system and their remediation ability towards heavy metal ions is still unclear. To uncover the underneath, we summarized heavy metal bioremediation technologies as well as their detoxification pathways in this review, which will contribute to find their interconnections and develop more efficient bioremediation technologies. Additionally, the future potential of gene-editing associated and advanced material associated multi-functional bioremediation technologies have been put forward in this review.