Transgenic plants: Benefits, applications, and potential risks in phytoremediation

Phytoremediation has gained the attention all over the world as one of the most cost-effective and sustainable approaches for removal, sequestration, and/or detoxification of contaminants especially metals and metalloids from land and freshwater bodies. However, field studies indicated that these contaminant removal rates and tolerability of the conventional plant species are inadequate. Therefore, transgenic plants endowed with extended capability for phytoremediation have emerged as a promising solution to overcome common weaknesses of conventional plants that have been used in the remediation process. Scientists were able to develop transgenic plants capable of successful removal of environmental contaminants including heavy metal(loid)s like Cd, Co, Cu, Pb, Zn, Se, As, and Hg. Although transgenic plants bring favorable advantages to phytoremediation, there are many concerns regarding human health and environmental sustainability. Therefore, this chapter extensively discusses the benefits and emerging applications of transgenic plants in phytoremediation to remediate the extraction of heavy metals and metalloids. This chapter also discusses the drawbacks and possible risks associated with the transgenic plants and the regulatory issues that could possibly arise from these transgenic species.