Omics approaches in effective selection and generation of potential plants for phytoremediation of heavy metal from contaminated resources.

Soil and water pollution, rapid industrialization, contaminated irrigation-water, increased waste-production and surge in agricultural land leads to the accumulation of Heavy Metals (HM) with time. HM contamination has raised concern over the past years and new remediation strategies are required to deal with it. HM-contaminated soil is often used for the production of food, which makes a gateway for toxic metals into the food-chain, thereby affecting food security and human health. To avoid HM-toxicity, decontamination of important resources is essential. Therefore, exploring phytoremediation for the removal, decomposition and detoxification of hazardous metals from HM-contaminated sites is of great significance. Hyper-accumulator plants can efficiently remove HMs. However, despite many hyper-accumulator plant species, there is a research gap in the studies of phytotechnology. Hence biotechnological efforts advocating omics studies i.e. genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and phenomics are in order, the purpose being to select and enhance a plant's potential for the process of phytoremediation to be more effective. There is a need to study newly developed high-efficiency hyper-accumulator plants as HM-decontaminator candidates for phytoremediation and phytomining. Therefore, this review focuses on various strategies and bio-technological methods for the removal of HM contaminants from sites, with emphasis on the advancement of phytoremediation, along with applications in cleaning up various toxic pollutants.

Phytoremediation technologies and their mechanism for removal of heavy metal from contaminated soil: An approach for a sustainable environment.

The contamination of soils with heavy metals and its associated hazardous effects are a thrust area of today's research. Rapid industrialization, emissions from automobiles, agricultural inputs, improper disposal of waste, etc., are the major causes of soil contamination with heavy metals. These contaminants not only contaminate soil but also groundwater, reducing agricultural land and hence food quality. These contaminants enter the food chain and have a severe effect on human health. It is important to remove these contaminants from the soil. Various economic and ecological strategies are required to restore the soils contaminated with heavy metals. Phytoremediation is an emerging technology that is non-invasive, cost-effective, and aesthetically pleasing. Many metal-binding proteins (MBPs) of the plants are significantly involved in the phytoremediation of heavy metals; the MBPs include metallothioneins; phytochelatins; metalloenzymes; metal-activated enzymes; and many metal storage proteins, carrier proteins, and channel proteins. Plants are genetically modified to enhance their phytoremediation capacity. In Arabidopsis, the expression of the mercuric ion-binding protein in Bacillus megaterium improves the metal accumulation capacity. The phytoremediation efficiency of plants is also enhanced when assisted with microorganisms, biochar, and/or chemicals. Removing heavy metals from agricultural land without challenging food security is almost impossible. As a result, crop selections with the ability to sequester heavy metals and provide food security are in high demand. This paper summarizes the role of plant proteins and plant-microbe interaction in remediating soils contaminated with heavy metals. Biotechnological approaches or genetic engineering can also be used to tackle the problem of heavy metal contamination.

Anti-cancer peptides: their current trends in the development of peptide-based therapy and anti-tumor drugs.

Human cancer remains a cause of high mortality throughout the world. The conventional methods and therapies currently employed for treatment are followed by moderate-to-severe side effects. They have not generated curative results due to the ineffectiveness of treatments. Besides, the associated high costs, technical requirements, and cytotoxicity further characterize their limitations. Due to relatively higher presidencies, bioactive peptides with anti-cancer attributes have recently become treatment choices within the therapeutic arsenal. The peptides act as potential anti-cancer agents explicitly targeting tumor cells while being less toxic to normal cells. The anti-cancer peptides are isolated from various natural sources, exhibit high selectivity and high penetration efficiency, and could be quickly restructured. The therapeutic benefits of compatible anti-cancer peptides have contributed to the significant expansion of cancer treatment; albeit, the mechanisms by which bioactive peptides inhibit the proliferation of tumor cells remain unclear. This review will provide a framework for assessing anti-cancer peptides' structural and functional aspects. It shall provide appropriate information on their mode of action to support and strengthen efforts to improve cancer prevention. The article will mention the therapeutic health benefits of anti-cancer peptides. Their importance in clinical studies is elaborated for reducing cancer incidences and developing sustainable treatment models.

Barley Melanoidins: Key Dietary Compounds With Potential Health Benefits.

This paper is a review of the potential health benefits of barley melanoidins. Food melanoidins are still rather understudied, despite their potential antioxidant, antimicrobial, and prebiotic properties. Free radicals are villainous substances in humans produced as metabolic byproducts and causing cancers and cardiovascular diseases, and the melanoidins alleviate the effects of these free radicals. Malt is produced from cereal grains such as barley, wheat, and maize, and barley is predominantly used in beer production. Beer (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) is a widely consumed beverage worldwide and a good source of dietary melanoidins, which enhance the beers' flavor, texture, and sensorial properties. Melanoidins, the final products of the Maillard reaction, are produced at different stages during the brewing process. Beer melanoidins protect the cells from oxidative damage of DNA. The high reducing capacity of melanoidins can induce hydroxyl radicals from H2O2 in the presence of ferric ion (Fe3+). Melanoidins inhibit lipid peroxidation during digestion due to their chelating metal property. However, lower digestibility of melanoidins leads to less availability to the organisms but is considered to function as dietary fiber that can be metabolized by the lower gut microbiota and possibly incur prebiotic properties. Melanoidins promote the growth of Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria in the gastrointestinal tract, preventing the colonization of potential pathogens. Barley is already popular through beer production and increasingly as a functional food. Considering this economic and industrial importance, more research to explore the chemical properties of barley melanoidins and corresponding health benefits as barley is warranted.

Impact assessment of major abiotic stresses on the proteome profiling of some important crop plants: a current update.

Abiotic stresses adversely affect the plant's growth and development leading to loss of crop plants and plant products in terms of both the quality and quantity. Two main strategies are adopted by plants to acclimatize to stresses; avoidance and tolerance. These adaptive strategies of plants at the cellular and metabolic level enable them to withstand such detrimental conditions. Acclimatization is associated with intensive changes in the proteome of plants and these changes are directly involved in plants response to stress. Proteome studies can be used to screen for these proteins and their involvement in plants response to various abiotic stresses evaluated. In this review, proteomic studies of different plants species under different abiotic stresses, particularly drought, salinity, heat, cold, and waterlogging, are discussed. From different proteomic studies, the stress response can be determined by an interaction between proteomic and physiological changes which occur in plants during such stress conditions. These identified proteins from different processes under different abiotic stress conditions definitely add to our understanding for exploiting them in various biotechnological applications in crop improvement.

A novel application of Paracoccus pantotrophus for the decolorization of melanoidins from distillery effluent under static conditions.

Melanoidin is the hazardous byproduct formed during the production of ethanol in distilleries. In the present study, a highly effective melanoidin decolorizing bacterial isolate, SAG1, was isolated from the effluent enriched soil of a distillery. This strain, identified as Paracoccus pantotrophus, was highly efficient to decolorize melanoidins up to 81.2 ± 2.43% in the presence of glucose and NH4NO3. The effects of autoclaved as well as living cells and inoculums size on decolorization activity were investigated. The results indicated that only living cell showed the decolorization activity i.e. 78.6 ± 2.62%, while, no activity has been observed using autoclaved cells. The inoculums size of 8% v/v, showed maximum activity of 62.9 ± 3.00%. The isolate SAG1 was found to be more efficient in decolorizing the melanoidins from distillery effluent as compared to the reference culture Pseudomonas putida.

Biodegradation and detoxification of melanoidin from distillery effluent using an aerobic bacterial strain SAG5 of Alcaligenes faecalis.

Distillery effluent retains very dark brown color even after anaerobic treatment due to presence of various water soluble, recalcitrant and coloring compounds mainly melanoidins. In laboratory conditions, melanoidin decolorizing bacteria was isolated and optimized the cultural conditions at various incubation temperatures, pH, carbon sources, nitrogen sources and combined effect of both carbon and nitrogen sources. The optimum decolorization (72.6 ± 0.56%) of melanoidins was achieved at pH 7.5 and temperature 37 °C on 5th day of cultivation. The toxicity evaluation with mung bean (Vigna radiata) revealed that the raw distillery effluent was environmentally highly toxic as compared to biologically treated distillery effluent, which indicated that the effluent after bacterial treatment is environmentally safe. This proves to be novel biological treatment technique for biodegradation and detoxification of melanoidin from distillery effluent using the bacterial strain SAG(5).