Assessment of atrazine decontamination by epiphytic root bacteria isolated from emergent hydrophytes

Advances in amelioration of air pollution using plants and associated microbes: An outlook on phytoremediation and other plant-based technologies

Globally, air pollution is an unfortunate aftermath of rapid industrialization and urbanization. Although the best strategy is to prevent air pollution, it is not always feasible. This makes it imperative to devise and implement techniques that can clean the air continuously. Plants and microbes have a natural potential to transform or degrade pollutants. Hence, strategies that use this potential of living biomass to remediate air pollution seem to be promising. The simplest future trend can be planting suitable plant-microbe species capable of removing air pollutants like SO2, CO2, CO, NOX and particulate matter (PM) along roadsides and inside the buildings. Established wastewater treatment strategies such as microbial fuel cells (MFC) and constructed wetlands (CW) can be suitably modified to ameliorate air pollution. Green architecture involving green walls and green roofs is facile and aesthetic, providing urban ecosystem services. Certain microbe-based bioreactors such as bioscrubbers and biofilters may be useful in small confined spaces. Several generative models have been developed to assist with planning and managing green spaces in urban locales. The physiological limitations of using living organisms can be circumvent by applying biotechnology and transgenics to improve their potential. This review provides a comprehensive update on not just the plants and associated microbes for the mitigation of air pollution, but also lists the technologies that are available and/or can be modified and used for air pollution control. The article also gives a detailed analysis of this topic in the form of strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-challenges (SWOC). The strategies mentioned in this review would help to attain corporate Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while reducing carbon footprint in the urban scenario. The review aims to emphasise that urbanization is possible while tackling air pollution using facile, green techniques involving plants and associated microbes.

Atrazine decontamination by a newly screened psychrotroph Paenarthrobacter sp. KN0901 in an aquatic system: Metabolic pathway, kinetics, and hydroponics experiment

Atrazine residues running off the fields and entering water resources are a major threat to food security and the ecosystem. In this study, a psychrotrophic functional strain named KN0901 to remove atrazine residues was screened. KN0901 could degrade 30 mg·L^-1 atrazine in 4 days at 15ºC with 10⁵ CFU·mL^-1 incubation. The phylogenetic results showed KN0901 belonged to Paenarthrobacter sp. PCR results showed that the functional genes consist of trzN, atzB, and atzC, suggesting atrazine was transformed to cyanuric acid by KN0901. KN0901 could degrade atrazine without adding exogenous carbon and nitrogen sources. What's more, KN0901 could tolerate extreme low temperature (5ºC) and high atrazine concentration (100 mg·L^-1). When growth and degradation curves were compared, the results indicated the length of lag time showed significant correlation to atrazine degradation rate. The hydroponic experiments showed that the toxicity of atrazine was significantly reduced with KN0901 treatment. The study provided an effective, economic, and eco-friendly bioremediation measure to address atrazine contamination.

Endophytic bacterium CIMAP-A7 mediated amelioration of atrazine induced phyto-toxicity in Andrographis paniculata

The presence of atrazine, a triazine herbicide, and its residues in agriculture soil poses a serious threat to human health and environment through accumulation in edible plant parts. Hence, the present study focused on atrazine induced stress amelioration of Andrographis paniculata, an important medicinal plant, by a plant growth promoting and atrazine degrading endophytic bacterium CIMAP-A7 inoculation. Atrazine has a non-significant effect at a lower dose while at a higher dose (lower: 25 and higher: 50 mg kg^-1) 22 and 36% decrease in secondary metabolite content and plant dry weight of A. paniculata was recorded, respectively. Endophyte CIMAP-A7 inoculation significantly reduced atrazine soil content, by 78 and 51% at lower and a higher doses respectively, than their respective control treatments. Inoculation of CIMAP-A7 exhibited better plant growth in terms of increased total chlorophyll, carotenoid, protein, and metabolite content with reduced atrazine content under both atrazine contaminated and un-contaminated treatments. Atrazine induced oxidative stress in A. paniculata was also ameliorated by CIMAP-A7 by reducing stress enzymes, proline, and malondialdehyde accumulation under contaminated soil conditions than un-inoculated treatments. Furthermore, the presence of atrazine metabolites deisopropylatrazine (DIA) and desethylatrazine (DEA) strongly suggests a role of CIMAP-A7 in mineralization however, the absence of these metabolites in uninoculated soil and all plant samples were recorded. These findings advocate that the amelioration of atrazine induced stress with no/least pesticide content in plant tissues by plant-endophyte co-interactions would be efficient in the remediation of atrazine contaminated soils and ensure safe crop produce.

Atrazine detoxification by intracellular crude enzyme extracts derived from epiphytic root bacteria associated with emergent hydrophytes

The present study demonstrated atrazine detoxification by intracellular crude enzyme extracts of Pseudomonas spp. strains ACB and TLB. Indigenous bacterial protein-based remediation techniques could be an alternative to bioaugmentation which pose multiple challenges when applied to the field. Intracellular enzymes were extracted from strains ACB and TLB and their degradation potential of 10 mg L^-1 was determined using Gas Chromatography; further, enzyme extracts were subjected to protein profiling studies. In span of 6 h, enzyme extracts of strain ACB showed maximum degradation at 30 °C and 40 °C (71%) and enzyme extracts of strain TLB showed maximum degradation at 40 °C (48%). Atrazine degradation by enzyme extracts of strain ACB showed maximum degradation at pH 7 (71%) and pH 6 (69%) in 6 h. Similarly, enzyme extracts of strain TLB showed maximal degradation at pH 6 (46%) in 6 h. The present study demonstrated, for the first time, efficient atrazine remediation by intracellular crude enzyme extracts from epiphytic root bacteria at a range of temperature and pH conditions. Protein profiling studies indicated that atrazine induced expression of CoA ester lyase and alkyl hydroperoxide reductase in the strains ACB and TLB respectively. Expressions of these proteins have never been associated with atrazine exposure.