Phytoremediation: Cleaning up the Environment by Plants

Anthropogenic activities cause pollution of soil, groundwater, sediments, surface water, air with unsafe and noxious chemicals is one of the main crises facing the industrialized world today. Over the last century, public apprehension about environmental pollution has increased remarkably. Now a days, polluted soils and waters as a result of global industrialization pose a major environmental and human health problem, which can not be easily solved, even in the rich industrialized countries. Classical remediation technologies are mostly found inadequate to solve the problem and to redevelop sites for housing, agriculture or recreation. Application of plants metabolic potential is accepted as an environmentally benign and economical measure for decontamination of polluted environment. Transgenic approaches successfully employed to promote phytoextraction of metals and metalloids from soil by their account in the above-ground biomass involved mainly implementation of metal transporters improved production of enzymes of sulphur metabolism and production of metal detoxifying Cheatersmetallothionine and phytochelatin.