A review on ecology implications and pesticide degradation using nitrogen fixing bacteria under biotic and abiotic stress conditions

ABSTRACT

The excessive use of chemical substances such as pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, along with other harmful practices, has disrupted the beneficial microflora in the soil. These harmful effects extend beyond the soil and can lead to the spread of dangerous diseases in both humans and animals. Pesticides are frequently applied in modern agriculture to boost crop production and meet the demands of a growing population. However, the accumulation of pesticides in the soil poses a threat to both the soil itself and the overall ecosystem. As pesticides enter the food chain, groundwater, and marine water, they have direct or indirect impacts on human health and negatively affect terrestrial and aquatic life. These chemical compounds contribute to various biological and microscopic contaminants, resulting in detrimental environmental consequences. Fortunately, certain microorganisms possess natural tolerance to pesticides and can survive under adverse conditions. Diazotrophs, which are nitrogen-fixing bacteria, have also been found to play a role in the biodegradation of toxic compounds released from pesticides, thereby contributing to a healthier environment. This review focuses on the essential microbial community involved in pesticide degradation, with particular emphasis on Diazotrophs. It explores their classification, mechanisms of pesticide degradation, and regulation under stress conditions. Understanding the characteristics of these essential microbes (Diazotrophs) operating in stressful environments is crucial for pesticide degradation. The study highlights the significant role of microbial diversity in the breakdown of xenobiotic pesticide compounds in the soil, emphasising the importance of an eco-friendly approach to improve agricultural practices, sustain soil fertility, promote crop production, and protect ecotoxicology.

KEYWORDS:

• Pesticide
• Diazotrophs
• Soil
• Crop
• Degradation
• Bacteria

Acknowledgment

Authors are thankful to Maharishi Markandeshwar (Deemed to Be University), Mullana for providing the work place and all the essential facilities to compile the manuscript. We also acknowledge to bioRendor tool for designing the template of figures. The authors are thankful to the Deanship of Scientific Research at Najran University, Najran, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for funding under the Research Group funding program grant no. NU/RG/MRC/12/2.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

The datasets generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Statement and declarations

The authors are declared that the manuscript is original and not submitted to any other journal for publication.

Consent to publish

Authors have used bioRendor app for drawing figures used in manuscript. The authors acknowledge the app and given reference in figure legends.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chahat Sharma

Ms. Chahat Sharma is an efficient research scholar at Maharishi Markandeshwar (deemed to be) University-Mullana, Ambala (Haryana) India. She completed her M.Sc. in the year 2019 from Chandigarh University, Mohali (Punjab). At present, she is working on the characterisation of novel diazotrophs showing pesticide degrading capacity using molecular approach in Maharishi Markandeshwar Deemed to be University, Mullana (Ambala). She has attended various national and international conferences. She is contributing to the field of Molecular Biology in the form of articles. Her current work focuses on the characterisation of novel diazotrophs showing the dual activity of nitrogen fixation and pesticide degradation.

Pooja Sharma

Dr. Pooja Sharma is an efficient faculty working as an assistant professor at Maharishi Markandeshwar (deemed to be) University-Mullana, Ambala (Haryana) India. She has a doctorate in plant biotechnology and expertise in the field of molecular biology and plant biotechnology. She obtained her Ph. D in the year 2015 from Ch. Devi Lal University, Sirsa (Haryana). During her Doctor of Philosophy, she has gained experience in gene isolation, cloning, characterisation, mutant analysis and molecular markers from the prestigious research laboratory at National Institute for Plant Biotechnology, PUSA Campus, New Delhi-110012. She has expertise in plant molecular techniques and published various articles in the area. She has also worked at the Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research, Karnal (Haryana) on Biological Nitrogen Fixation in wheat crops. In ICAR-IIWBR she was working on wheat transgenic for the study of biological nitrogen fixation. At present, she is working on the characterisation of salt-tolerant diazotrophs showing pesticide-degrading activity in Maharishi Markandeshwar Deemed to be University, Mullana (Ambala). She has delivered lecture invitations from a prestigious international group (Global Genome Biodiversity Network, Shenzhan-China). She has contributed to the field of molecular biology in the form of research and review articles, books and book chapters. She has published more than 25 articles in national and international peer-reviewed journals. Her current work focuses on the characterisation of novel diazotrophs showing pesticide-degrading capacity using a molecular approach. She is keenly interested in the field of nutritional value to improve food security and environmental sustainability using gene editing approaches such as CRISPR/Cas.

Amit Kumar

Mr. Amit Kumar is an efficient research scholar zt Maharishi Markandeshwar (Deemed to be) University-Mullana, Ambala (Haryana) India. His area of interest is on diazotroph that is biological nitrogen fixation. He has attended various national and international conferences. She is contributing to the field of molecular biology in the form of articles. His current work focuses on the characterisation of novel diazotrophs from the cereal soil system.

Yashika Walia

Dr. Yashika Walia is an assistant professor at Maharishi Markandeshwar (deemed to be) University-Mullana, Ambala (Haryana) India. She is a Ph.D. graduate from the Institute of National Importance, CSIR-IHBT (2016). Her Ph.D. research is focused on understanding the infectivity mechanism of Apple Scar Skin viroid RNA. She has expertise in plant molecular virology and host-pathogen interactions. During her Ph.D. she published various articles in the area of plant virology and RNA biology. She expanded her research profile by working as a young investigator at the DBT-Regional Centre for Biotechnology. At RCB her research work was focused on plant immune signalling, she worked on deciphering the role of signalling molecules-Inositol Phosphates in mediating salicylic acid-dependent defence signalling in plants. She has published several research articles in reputed journals such as RNA Biology, Plant Pathology, Plant Physiology, Plant Cell Reports Frontiers in Cell and Development Biology, etc.

Raman Kumar

Dr. Raman Kumar has been working as a senior associate professor in the department of biotechnology, Maharishi Markendeshwar (Deemed to be University), Mullana (Ambala), Haryana, India Since 2011. He has also worked as a senior research rellow, Division of Soil and Crop Management, Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, Karnal, India from 2007 to 2010. He has experience of about 17 years in the field of teaching and research in the area of microbial and environmental biotechnology. He has involved in more than 65 publications and 04 books in various national and international peer-reviewed journals. He is also the associate editor for the research journal “Current Trends in Biotechnology and Chemical Research” (eISSN 2321-0265;pISSN 2249-4073) which we initiated from this University (M.M. (Deemed to be University) which is currently indexed in many reputed databases including CAS, Medical Journal Links, etc. He has been working in the area of environmental biotechnology and also got a major project from Haryana DST in the area of Environmental Microbiology. He developed many bacterial and fungal strains for the removal of heavy metals from wastewater. His current research areas are bioremediation and biodegradation of toxic pollutants, pesticides and azo dyes using microbial consortiums from the industrial effluents, mechanism involved in heavy metal bioremediation.

Ahmad Umar

Professor Ahmad Umar received his B.Sc. in biosciences and M.Sc. in inorganic chemistry from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Aligarh, India, and a Ph.D. in semiconductor and chemical engineering from Chonbuk National University, South Korea. He worked as a research scientist in Brain Korea 21, Centre for Future Energy Materials and Devices, Chonbuk National University, South Korea, in 2007-2008. Afterwards, he joined the department of chemistry at Najran University, Najran, Saudi Arabia. He is a distinguished professor of chemistry and is the current deputy director of the Promising Centre for Sensors and Electronic Devices (PCSED), Najran University, Najran, Saudi Arabia. Professor Ahmad Umar specialises in the growth, properties and high technological applications of nanomaterials in various areas, for instance, gas, chemicals and biosensors, nanomaterial-based environmental remediation, biomaterials and so on. He also specialises in the modern analytical and spectroscopic techniques used for the characterisations and applications of semiconductor nanomaterials. He contributed to the world of science by editing the world's first handbook series on metal oxide nanostructures and their applications (5-volume set, 3500 printed pages, www.aspbs.com/mona) and the handbook series on Encyclopedia of Semiconductor Nanotechnology (7-volume set; www.aspbs.com/esn), both published by ASP.

Ahmed A. Ibrahim

Dr. Ahmed A. Ibrahim is working as an assistant professor at the department of chemistry, College of Science and Arts and Promising Centre for Sensors and Electronic Devices, Najran University, Saudi Arabia. His research focuses on the synthesis, characterisation and various applications of nanoparticles. Applications include chemical, gas, biosensors, bioapplications of materials, biomaterials and so on.

Mohd. Sayeed Akhtar

Dr. Mohd. Sayeed Akhtar is a senior assistant professor at Gandhi Faiz-e-Aam College, Shahjahanpur, U.P., India. He received his PhD degree from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Aligarh, India in 2008, prior to conducting post-doctoral research at the Botanical Institute, University of Basel (BIB), Switzerland (2008-2010) and Chonbuk National University (CBNU), Republic of Korea in 2011. He worked as an assistant professor at Jimma University in Ethiopia from 2011 to 2014 and as a fellow researcher at Universiti Putra Malaysia's (UPM) Institute of Tropical Agriculture from 2014 to 2015. He has been listed among the top 2% of scientists in the world consecutively for the past three years, according to Stanford University in the United States. Dr. Akhtar is the author and co-author of more than 150 articles in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings and book chapters, and has edited 21 books with International publishers. His numerous honours include the Best Researcher of the Year Award (2016) from the APSF, DST, India, the Outstanding Scientist in Plant Pathology Award (2017) from VIRA, Chennai, India, the Global Teachers Award (2018) from the AKS Education Foundation, New Delhi, India and the Teacher Innovation Award (2019 and 2022) from ZIIEI, Sri Arvindo Society, Puducherry, India. He is serving the scientific community as an editorial board member and reviewer of several high-impact international journals. His current work focuses on molecular biotechnology, bioremediation, biomineralisation, nano-fertilisers and nanobiotechnology of rhizospheric plant-microbe interactions.

Abdulrab Ahmed M. Alkhanjaf

Dr. Abdulrab Ahmed M. Alkhanjaf is an associate professor at the College of Applied Medical Sciences, Najran University. He has twenty years of experience in the academic (12 years) and health (8 years) sectors. Work experience in academia and several health sectors has introduced Dr. Abdulrab to different technological applications, ranging from bedside analysis (point-of-care) to molecular analysis and the study of malignancy. He has published several papers in the Journal of International Repute.

Sotirios Baskoutas

Prof. Sotirios Baskoutas obtained his Ph.D. from the physics department of the University of Patras, Greece. He joined the materials science department of the University of Patras in 2001, where he iscurrently a professor (Full). Dr. Baskoutas has visited and worked in several Universities and Research Institutes outside Greece, such as the Department of Physics, Universita di Roma La Sapienza (Italy), Institute for Microstructural Sciences, National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa (Canada), Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Garching, Munich (Germany), INT Institute for Nanotechnology, Karlsruhe (Germany), Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart (Germany), Department of Chemistry, University of Hamburg (Germany). His research interests are focused mainly on theoretical and experimental studies in semiconductor nanostructures, with an emphasis on their electronic and optical properties.