title: Bio-rescue of marine environments: On the track of microbially-based metal/metalloid remediation.
abstract: The recent awareness of the huge relevance of marine resources and ecological services is driving regulatory demands for their protection from overwhelming contaminants, such as metals/metalloids. These contaminants enter and accumulate in different marine niches, hence deeply compromising their quality and integrity. Bioremediation has been flourishing to counteract metal/metalloid impacts, since it provides cost-effective and sustainable options by relying on ecology-based technologies. The potential of marine microbes for metal/metalloid bioremediation is the core of many studies, due to their high plasticity to overcome successive environmental hurdles. However, any thorough review on the advances of metal/metalloid bioremediation in marine environments was so far unveiled. This review is designed to (i) outline the characteristics and potential of marine microbes for metal/metalloid bioremediation, (ii) describe the underlying pathways of resistance and detoxification, as well as useful methodologies for their characterization, (iii) identify major bottlenecks on metal/metalloid bioremediation with marine microbes, (iv) present alternative strategies based on microbial consortia and engineered microbes for enhanced bioremediation, and (v) propose key research avenues to keep pace with a changing society, science and economy in a sustainable manner.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biologia & CESAM, Universidade de Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal. Electronic address: crmarques@ua.pt.
authors.forename: Catarina R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Marques
mesh_terms: D001673:Biodegradation, Environmental; D058955:Metalloids / Q000378:metabolism*; D008670:Metals / Q000378:metabolism*; D059013:Microbial Consortia; D012989:Soil Pollutants / Q000378:metabolism*; D014873:Water Pollutants / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D058955:Metalloids; D008670:Metals; D012989:Soil Pollutants; D014873:Water Pollutants
keywords: Bacteria; Cyanobacteria; Detoxification pathways; Fungi; Microbial consortia