Adaptation of bacterial communities and plant strategies for amelioration and eco-restoration of an organometallic industrial waste polluted site

The adaptation of any microorganism is morphological or biochemical changes required to survive in their ecological niches. This indicates the evolutionary process of bacterial communities, where the individual organism becomes better suited to live in its habitat. The bacterial communities have a broad range of adaptations due to their unique cell membrane properties and versatile nutritional behavior. It may be thermophiles, psychrophiles, acidophiles, halophiles, alkalophiles, and barophiles. To maintain the variable environmental conditions bacterial cell membrane protein modification plays a crucial role in controlling their function. The genome sequence of various psychrophiles revealed the function of the cell membrane with an increased proportion of polyunsaturated and branched fatty acids to increase the fluidity at low temperature and the presence of cold shock proteins are also believed to increase translational efficiency by destabilizing secondary structure of mRNA. The plant strategies for growth and phytoremediation at the polluted site involved various biochemical mechanisms for the amelioration of environmental pollutants. The mechanism of plant strategies is regulated through the production of glutathione, phytochelatins, metallothioneins, and various organic acids. Therefore the plant may adopt phytoextraction, phytostabilization, phytovolatilization, or rhizofiltration strategies based on the nature of pollutants and plant species. The phytoextraction process is mediated by the combined action of bacteria and plants due to secretion of some organic acids from plant and bacteria facilitating plant growth and transpiration mechanism. Consequently, various heavy metals are accumulated in the plant from complex organometallic wastes. The siderophores production for nutrient availability to plant is also a unique strategy of stress environment as a result of plant and bacterial interaction.