Role of Rhizosphere Microbiota of Plants Growing in Heavy Metal Contaminated Environments as Ecofriendly Decontamination Bio-Tools and their Role in the Context of Human Health – A Short Review

Abstract

Air, soil and water resources of our world are contaminated by heavy metals (HMs) via agricultural, urban, industrial, mining and smelting human activities which are threatening human health causing various human health issues such as sleeping disorders, kidney damage, tubular damage in various human organs, stomach cancer, heart diseases, brain damage and various neurological disorders, lung damage, anxiety/depression, etc. Various physio-chemical and biological decontamination mechanisms and strategies are being proposed for decontamination purposes, involving habitat-adapted plants growing on such contaminated sites and their rhizosphere associated microbiota, i.e. Phyto degradations or breakdown of HMs by Nanoparticles (NPs) synthesised by plant-root tissues and their associated symbiotic microbiota including Plant Growth Promoting Microbes (PGPM) and universal and ubiquitous Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (Nano-Mycorrhizo-PhytoRemediation-NMPR). This phenomenon has recently attracted much research attention and it could be adapted for a variety of environments with no added cost or any special requirements to remediate land and water ecosystems, including indoor closed areas like high rise buildings, Gardens, and Parks, aquaria, etc. Plants growing in the HM-contaminated soil or water ecosystems and their root-associated microbiota offer an environmentally green-clean technology for air, soil and water purification and bio-decontamination measures. This short review discusses the use of plants and their root associated microbiota as a novel line of inquiry, i.e. use of ecofriendly bio-tools for bio-decontamination of heavy metal contaminated ecosystems and their role in the context of human health.