Recent technological advancements in studying biodegradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons through theoretical approaches

Abstract

Abstract Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a large group of organic pollutants that belong to class-c carcinogens. PAHs have the potential for biomagnification through trophic transfer and contamination of soil as well as groundwater. Moreover, the hydrophobicity of PAHs turn them out as one of the primary factors for groundwater contamination, as they can easily parcolate into soil either in dry or wet form. In recent time, soil health is a major concern in the agro-industry irrespective of urban/rural settings. Removal of PAHs from contaminated agricultural soils by biodegradation offers several advantages. Indeed, the remediation of PAHs-contaminated soil by biodegradation has been proved to be economical, environmentally friendly, and flexible. In this perspective, bioremediation is gaining more and more importance as a constructive approach for the cleaning of polluted sites. In agricultural perspectives, microbial diversity occupies the central part of biodegradation study as soil microbial communities are main contributors in the practices of PAHs biodegradation. As the contaminants present in the soil considerably manipulate the composition and behavior of microorganisms in the soil, only certain microbes get preference as dynamic members in the whole microbial population for degradation of PAHs either in individual capacity or as a part of a group. Therefore the key to successful bioremediation is to identify and isolate the naturally occurring catabolic versatility of microbes that evolve potent PAH-degrading enzymes. Recent technological advances\xa0in bioinformatics viz., DNA metabarcoding, metatranscriptomics, cloud-scaled sequencing, crowdsourcing of metagenomics, metagenome microarray, and metagenomic species pan genomics (MSPG) aid to the in-depth understanding of such microbial diversity.