Challenges in Microbial-Mediated Bioremediation

Dear Colleagues,

Rapid urbanization and industrialization have resulted in the generation and disposal of a wide range of toxic pollutants into the environment, diminishing natural land resources. Therefore, it is critical to ensure the safe utilization of marginal and polluted lands, fulfilling the population’s feed and fiber demands by adopting modern techniques, i.e., microbial-mediated bioremediation, to enhance per capita land availability.

Microbial-mediated bioremediation is a collective phenomenon that purportedly uses biological processes to restore or clean up contaminants in the environment. Bioremediation is a cost-effective, and eco-friendly biotechnological strategy providing an alternative to physicochemical options to remove hazardous contaminants from the environment. Because of its distinctive characteristics, the bioremediation approach is considered a novel solution for a polluted environment. Many soil microbes have potential for heavy metal remediation, and their active participation to increase land utilization needs further appraisal.

The current Special Issue will provide researchers and environmental professionals with the opportunity to discuss challenges and achievements regarding bioremediation. Laboratory and field studies on bioremediation with novel research outcomes are warmly welcomed.

Potential topics include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Mitigation of contaminants using new bioremediation techniques;
• Adaptation and absorption capacity of microbes against heavy metals;
• Identification of novel remediation microbes;
• Identification and quantification of putative functional genes involved in bioremediation using PCR and qPCR;
• Modern metagenomic methods to identify active microbial communities under a polluted environment, i.e., high-throughput DNA/RNA sequencing, PLFA, and DNA-SIP;
• Detoxification ability of microbes against heavy metals;
• Novel processes for enhancing bioremediation and underlying mechanisms;
• Microbial–plant interaction for bioremediation.

Dr. Qichun Zhang
Dr. Touqeer Abbas
Guest Editors

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• heavy metals
• microbial bioremediation
• heavy metal tolerant strain
• biofertilizer
• heavy metals translocation
• heavy metal and nitrogen interaction