Phytotoxicity of Hg and its Detoxification through Microorganisms in Soil

Aatif Amin, Zakia Latif

Abstract


Due to the advent of industrialization, pollution of terrestrial environment by heavy metals has emerged as a great issue. Therefore, it is an urgent need to realize the Hg-induced toxicity in plants and as well as in animals and the harmful effects by the consumption of contaminated nutrition. Mercury is considered as a hazardous contaminant that can be changed into various oxidation states easily and causes many deleterious effects in several physiological processes in both plants and animals. Microorganisms possess two extensively studied Hg-detoxification processes like Mer operon (merTPCFAD) and Met gene which encode the functional proteins for transportation (merT, merP and/or merC, merF), reduction (merA) and a secondary regulatory protein (merD) and sulfhydrylase enzymes (met gene) respectively to modify toxic Hg+2 to nontoxic elemental state (Hg0). Due to the ever increase in Hg-pollution and very little information about its phytotoxic effects and detoxification mechanisms, the authors expect, the present article will make possibility in the provision of  a comprehensive literature study about Hg-induced toxicity in plants and its detoxification processes to provoke for advance research in this field.


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