ABSTRACT
One of the most significant environmental and health challenges in society is the disposal of untreated wastewater effluents from different industries containing biotoxic substances from heavy metal discharges into the ecosystem. These toxic metals may concentrate in agricultural soils and penetrate the food chain, thus becoming a major food safety concern. Therefore, the creation of a new, reliable, eco-friendly, and cost-effective solution for the remediation of heavy metals released into the environment and the conservation of the ecosystem is increasingly needed. In areas with low metal toxicity, traditional and physical methods are costly and ineffective. Moreover, bioremediation is an environmentally-sustainable and effective means of recovering ecosystems polluted with heavy metals by using the endogenous biological processes of microbes and plants to remove toxic compounds. Heavy metals are important for normal plant growth and microbial development, but elevated levels of both essential and non-essential metals can lead to symptoms of growth inhibition and toxicity. Plants and microbes possess a set of alternative cellular pathways that may be involved in heavy metal detoxification and thus have a tolerance to metal toxicity or stress. This chapter provides the significant advancements and applications made in understanding the biochemical and molecular mechanisms of plant–microbe interactions and their role in major phytoremediation processes, such as heavy metal detoxification and tolerance.
