Microbe Assisted Degradation of Xenobiotics

Rapid industrialization causes the buildup of toxic xenobiotic materials into the biosphere. They are discharged from a number of industries and are a matter of serious universal concern. These materials are toxic and carcinogenic in nature if they exist for a longer period of time in the ecosystem. They have many well-known negative impacts on human health. Prior to the release of these compounds into the environment they must be treated into nontoxic compounds. Several physic-chemical methods/techniques are utilized to degrade these compounds, but they are associated with some demerits. These demerits force researchers to explore other viable alternative methods to degrade the xenobiotics that are superior to physico-chemical methods. Application of microorganisms is a very useful tool to treat the complex xenobiotics into simpler nontoxic ones with several merits. Microbes display their potential to degrade xenobiotics either by enzymatic or biosorption methods. Microbes have catabolic genes that encode several specific enzymes which help the rapid transformation of xenobiotic compounds. Many genes that enable microorganisms to degrade xenobiotic compounds have been identified and characterized. Some of these genes have been engineered to produce genetically engineered microbes for better efficacy.