Xenobiotic and Emerging Contaminants in Ecosystems: Innovative Geo-microbial Strategies for Prevention, Efficient Clean-up and Biosafety

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Background

Synthetic xenobiotic and hazardous compounds including substituted aromatics, toxic heavy metals, pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCP), and emerging contaminants like perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are getting fluxed into ecosystems through effluent discharge, sludge disposal, waste dumping, agricultural activities, and so on. These substances are proven to be genotoxic, mutagenic, and endocrine disrupting and have serious health consequences in humans and other biotas along with the ability to disrupt bio-geochemical processes and climate phenomena. As a result, multi-sectorial efforts with trans-disciplinary action in terms of preventing its entry into ecosystem compartments, integrated emission management, and advanced abatements are required to gain sustainable biosafety. Alternatively, these xenobiotics have put natural microbial communities under multipartite selection pressure to evolve adaptive metabolic strategies to overcome the toxic effects and survive at the impacted sites. As a result, multi-level/integrated research on characterizing these toxic agents at natural sites using newer techniques as well as formulating innovative technologies using metabolic capabilities of key degrading microbial members/communities i.e. bioprocesses will aid in rationalizing plans for effective bioremediation/clean-up.

Despite the present knowledge of various microbial metabolic pathways, genetics, and enzymes in the degradation of synthetic xenobiotic and hazardous compounds, a complete and comprehensive understanding of the role of key microbial communities, and their synergistic interactions during in-situ bioremediation is poorly explained. In addition, a system-level approach including multi-OMICS is the key to unraveling the details of mechanisms of microbial degradation of toxic xenobiotics and emerging pollutants. This will further enable us to identify regulatory components and circuits underpinning the processes. Detailed studies on high-throughput OMICS are still under-performed to delineate the role of unconventional taxa (core and rare microbiome) in achieving better biodegradation, biosafety, and biosecurity. Furthermore, a geochemical perspective on community structure and function at the impacted niches needs to be addressed. As many of the contaminants have recently been recognized (emerging), the design and implementation of novel/new detection and characterization will provide a better perspective on the problem. To further render the treatment process effective and viable, the use of bio-physico-chemical technologies (biochar, metal-organic complex, nano-composites, mineral-microbial complex, etc.) along with metabolic engineering (design-build-analyze and engineering) will enable to re-circuit pathways for enhancing the clean-up processes, thus achieving “safe and secure” ecosystem health.

Knowing the genotoxic contaminants in situ, characterizing them, evaluating their physico-chemistry and toxicity, identifying greener and sustainable strategies for prevention of their entry into ecosystem compartments, and integrated emission management and abatements, this special issue will help the researchers and policymakers to rationalize effective and innovative clean-up processes, thus reducing potential risks of exposure to these contaminants.

We are interested in research articles and review articles on the following areas/topics:

• Newer bio-geo-chemical ways of detection and characterization of genotoxic pollutants in varied ecosystems,
• Fate and transport of emerging xenobiotic contaminants in ecosystems: biogeochemistry-based insights,
• Microbial transformation of emerging xenobiotics: OMICS-based insights on genetics, metabolism, enzymes, and regulatory circuits,
• Metagenomics-based community role for degradation of emerging pollutants: novel pathways/processes,
• Innovative strategies for the treatment of emerging xenobiotic contaminants in waste(s)/wastewater(s): biochar, metal-organic complex, nano-composites, mineral-microbial complex, other low-cost materials,
• Rules, policies, and directives for better biosafety and biosecurity for toxic and hazardous contaminants: recent progress and essential requirements.

Keywords: Xenobiotics, Emerging contaminants, Microbial transformation, OMICS, Biosafety, Biosecurity

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