Recent advancement in plant genetic engineering for efficient phytoremediation

Abstract Phytoremediation is the most simple and powerful approach for reducing heavy metals from polluted soils. Cleanup in most polluted environments is necessary to protect the area and minimize the introduction of harmful components into the food chain. Phytoremediation is a clean and cost-effective method to remove organic/inorganic pollutants primarily from soils by the use of plants and some plant-associated microorganisms. Recent case studies on model organisms using molecular genetics will improve the knowledge of essential metal metabolism in plants. There is a strong need for a collective way for finding effective ways for removing these toxic metals from the soil and other polluted metals from the biosphere. This chapter will discuss in brief about the absorption and elimination of toxic metals from the environment using different phytoremediation techniques, further there will be discussion on strategies used for generating transgenic plants and evaluation of genome editing approaches to raise plants, which can survive in toxic environment.