Molecular Overview of Heavy Metal Phytoremediation

Abstract

Metal toxification has remained one of the problems with the advent of industrial revolution. Plant based remediation are showing increasing promise for use in soils contaminated with organic and inorganic pollutants. A large number of plant families has been identified which has shown significant result in detoxification of heavy metals. Hyperaccumulator plant is capable of sequestering heavy metals in their shoot tissues. High tolerance to HM toxicity is dependent on a reduced metal uptake or increased internal sequestration, which depends on plant and environmental condition. Recent progresses on understanding cellular/molecular mechanisms of metal tolerance by plants are reviewed. This chapter aims to focus on molecular mechanism involved in heavy metal detoxification and tolerance by plants. A different method by which plant effectively converts toxic metal in less toxic compounds has been explained in this chapter. Further, mode of accumulation and sequestration of metals have been explained which are utilized by hyper accumulators.