Biotechnological Approaches for Bioremediation: In Vitro Hairy Root Culture

Abstract

Environmental contamination has become a concerning issue worldwide due to number of risks it poses to human health and ecosystem functioning. Contaminants present in soils or waters can go up through the trophic chain via microbial or plant incorporation. Bio/Phytoremediation is an emerging technology for large-scale removal or detoxification of contaminants from the environment. It makes the use of plants and associated microbial communities to remove, transfer, or stabilize pollutants in an environmental friendly manner. This chapter discusses the biotechnological research including genetic engineering, hairy root culture, and identification of the genes or physiological processes in optimizing efficacy of plants as phytoremediators. Hairy root cultures constitute an important tool in phytoremediation research and may provide an ideal model system to identify the role of plants in phytoremediation. Future studies on hairy roots system in relation to phytoremediation should focus on the engineering of target genes involved in this process and to extend the basic hairy root phytoremediation model to the environment.