Response to Newman: New uses of endophytic bacteria to improve phytoremediation

Abstract

Recently we published a concept for using engineered endophytic bacteria to improve phytoremediation of water soluble, volatile, organic pollutants [1]. Using yellow lupine as the model plant and toluene, a common solvent as well as a gasoline additive, as the contaminant, we demonstrated that compared with controls the plants inoculated with an endophytic Burkholderia cepacia strain able to degrade toluene could grow in the presence of elevated levels of toluene, and that the amount of transpired toluene decreased significantly.