SENSE · BioSensing and rhizospherE – eNdosphere geochemical microprofiling of polychlorinated byphenils degradation by Soil microbiota upon stimulation of root Exudates

BioSensing and rhizospherE – eNdosphere geochemical microprofiling of polychlorinated byphenils degradation by Soil microbiota upon stimulation of root Exudates

Soil contamination by persistent organic pollutants (POPs) represents a severe threat for human health and causes land degradation, loss of soil fertility and biodiversity. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a family of 209 molecules featured by toxicity, recalcitrance and low chemical reactivity that cause severe ecological problems since they accumulate in the food chain, causing harmful effects in humans and animals, acting as endocrine disruptors. Therefore, PCBs still persist in sites where their production was carried out for decades, like the former Caffaro S.p.A. chemical factory in Brescia (an industrialized city of 200,000 inhabitants in North Italy) where about 100 hectars of soil show a contamination by a mixture of contaminants including PCBs often exceeding the legal thresholds for residential areas. Phyto-rhizo-remediation is a promising technology for pollutant clean-up based on the ability of the plant holobiont, composed by the host plant and the associated microbiome, to uptake, transform and degrade chemicals. Plant roots indeed nurture a large diversity of soil microbes via exudation of chemical compounds and some of them have been demonstrated to be able to stimulate the microbial degradation of toxic compounds, like PCBs. Despite the well documented role of the plant holobiont in ecosystem services, the complex interactions between the host plant and the microbiome are poorly understood, in particular in contaminated environments. SENSE offers an innovative approach to sort out the temporal and spatial synergistic interplay within the plant holobiont components and the geochemistry of rhizosphere micro-niches supporting microbial degradation. The research has been approached from two complementary angles: i) set up and application of bacterial biosensors to examine root topography and dynamics of activation of the PCB degradation pathways upon stimulation by identified plant root exudates; ii) sensing the plant modulated chemical micro-habitats through microsensor/sensor devices during plant-microbe interaction under PCBs stress

Data: CORDIS, © European Union