Toxicity and bioremediation of the lead: a critical review

ABSTRACT

Lead is a naturally occurring, bluish-gray metal that is found in small quantities in the earth’s crust. The existing literature demonstrates that non-biodegradable character and continuous use results in accumulation of lead concentration in the environment and causes various ill effects such as neurotoxicity, change in psychological and behavioral development of different organisms. Nowadays the most effective technique in the revival of the environment is bioremediation and it is environmentally friendly and cost-effective. Bacterial strains such as Oceanobacillus profundus and Lactobacillus acidophilus ATCC4356 have the ability to reduce lead 97% and 73.9%, respectively. Similarly some species of algae and fungal strains also showed lead removal efficiency as 74% (spirulina), 97.1% (Chlorella kessleri), 95.5% (Penicillium janthinillum) and 86% (Aspergillus flavus). Biodegradation of lead by various microbes would be the most efficient and sustainable approach. This review focuses on toxicity, fate of lead in the environment and its microbial degradation.

KEYWORDS:

• Lead
• toxicity
• bacteria
• algae
• bioremediation

Acknowledgment

We are grateful to authors of 200+ studies whose extensive work provides data for this critical review. We are also grateful to anonymous reviewers and Editor in Chief of the journal Dr Qihong Deng for valuable comments that help us to improve the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.