Microbial-Assisted Phytoextraction and Growth Promotion of Sesbania sesban Linn. in Lead Contaminated Soil by Pseudomonas aeruginosa

In the past century, the world has made a lot of progress and provided comfort in every field of life because of industrialization and the introduction of new technologies. Along with many benefits, industrialization also led to many problems. This industrialization has contaminated the environment including soil, air and water. The addition of heavy metals (lead, copper, cadmium, nickel, etc.) to the soil is hazardous to the ecosystem. Lead is highly contaminating hazardous heavy metal and it is added into the environment by mining, electroplating, pesticides application and discharge of lead batteries. In the current study, the hazardous lead contaminated soil was treated with hyper accumulating Sesbania sesban Linn. plants. To further enhance the growth of S. sesban Linn. and improve its hyper-accumulation ability, a plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB), i.e. Pseudomonas aeruginosa was used for the seed priming of Sesbania sesban plants. Under Pb stress, P. aeruginosa exhibited a positive effect on physiological and biochemical properties and antioxidant enzymatic activities of S. sesban. Findings of this study revealed that the inoculation of PGPB improves growth attributes such as relative water content and photosynthetic pigments of S. sesban under Pb stress. Inoculated plants decreased accumulation of MDA, proline, and H2O2. Higher accumulation of sugar and protein contents was also observed in P. aeruginosa inoculated plants. Based on obtained data, it may be concluded that the inoculation of P. aeruginosa can reduce Pb stress in soil and can enhance the growth of S. sesban plants.