Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi: a Potential Biotechnological Tool for Phytoremediation of Heavy Metal Contaminated Soils

High concentrations of heavy metals in the soil have detrimental effects on ecosystems and are a risk to human health as they can enter the food chain via agricultural products or contaminated drinking water. Phytoremediation is the direct use of living plants for in situ remediation of metal contaminated soil, sludges, sediments and ground water through contaminant removal, degradation or containment. It has gained popularity as an emerging clean up technology for environmental restoration during the last decade due to its convenience and low costs of installation and maintenance. However, as phytoremediation is a slow process, improvement of efficiency and thus increased stabilization or removal of heavy metals from soils is an important goal. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) Fungi provide an attractive system to advance plant based environmental clean-up. AM associations are integral functioning parts of plant roots and are widely recognized as enhancing plant growth on severely disturbed sites, including those contaminated with heavy metals. They are reported to play an important role in metal tolerance and accumulation. Isolation of the indigenous and presumably stress-adapted AM fungi can be a potential biotechnological tool for inoculation of plants for successful restoration of degraded ecosystems. This review highlights the potential of AM fungi for enhancing phytoremediation of heavy metal contaminated soils.