International Journal of Environmental Sciences
Open Access
  • Year: 2013
  • Volume: 3
  • Issue: 5

Physiological and biochemical mechanisms of heavy metal tolerance

  • Author:
  • S. Revathi, Subhashree Venugopal
  • Total Page Count: 16
  • DOI:
  • Page Number: 1339 to 1354

School of Biosciences and Technology, VIT University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India

*Email: revashi02@gmail.com

Online published on 6 December, 2013.

Abstract

Heavy metal contaminants are a serious problem worldwide to human health, animals and some plants. Phytoremediation, is a promising technology, which has gained wide acceptance in remediating the contaminants from the soil, which uses green plants known as hyperaccumulators. Biochemical mechanisms such as adsorption, transport, accumulation and translocation that are adopted by plants are of supreme importance in developing improved phytoremediation. Identification of suitable hyperaccumulating plants with remarkable biochemical mechanism, presents a fascinating success in the field of phytoremediation as well as other research area. The heavy metal extraction from the contaminated soil can be achieved through the genetically modified plants, to achieve effective hyperaccumulation.

Keywords

Heavy metals, contamination, phytoremediation, hyperaccumulation, biochemical mechanism