Plant molecular strategies in response to soil contaminants

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Past and current industrial activities, such as mining and petrochemical refinement, have had major deleterious effects on the environment, leaving large areas of degraded and contaminated lands throughout Canada. The majority of contaminated sites is affected by both organic and inorganic compounds. The predominant organic contaminants include petroleum by-products, volatile organic compounds, aromatic hydrocarbons and pesticides. Common inorganic contaminants are metals and metalloids, referred to as trace elements. Phytoremediation is the environmental technique that aims to take advantage of these natural mechanisms in plants and of their associated properties of accumulation or degradation of soil contaminants. For plants growing in such polluted soils the potentially toxic contaminants induce physiological and molecular changes that are characteristic of abiotic stress. Although their co-occurrence is well known, their respective role and sequence (antecedent, mechanism and output) remain poorly described.