Mycorrhizal contacts can get better adaptability for host plant under metal stress

Abstract

Massive accumulation of heavy metals in both land and terrestrial ecosystems has become a severe fret globally via improper disposal of municipal solid waste and industrial discharge, offensive use of agrochemicals, pig manure, coal, and wood ashes etc. Heavy metals are bioaccumulated and biomagnified at unparalleled level; where they intermingle with various essential nutrients leading to undue rise of reactive oxygen species resulting in to serious anomalies in living organisms. Phytoremediation though a slow and inexpensive technique for heavy metal exclusion but is an in-situ and much focused process. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi have been reported to assuage heavy metal stress of plants. Alleviation of heavy metals from contaminated soil by plants is either through phytoextraction or by phytostabilization. In Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi colonized plants phytostabilization includes immobilization of heavy metals in fungal vesicles or hyphae. Release of organic acids, production of glomalin protein, metallothionine protein and secretion of plant growth promoting substances by mycorrhiza add to the remediation process by helping plants to eliminate heavy metals from polluted soil. This review is aimed to explore the role of mycorrhiza mediated phytostabilization in heavy metal remediation.