Rapidly Screening Plant Species for Phytoremediation through Suspension Culture

Increasing interest in using phytoremediation to detoxify water and soil is producing demand for identifying approaches that can rapidly select plant species that will effectively capture and remove contaminants. Plant suspension culture is a branch of plant tissue culture which is a special vegetative propagation method that satisfies this need. This pilot study combined plant suspension culture and phytoremediation using guava and other plant tissues in a plant bioreactor to investigate effectiveness of extracting and hyper-accumulating phosphorus. We observed a significant reduction of phosphorus on day 3 and by the end of the third week an 80% reduction of phosphorus was recorded. We also observed that the pollutant aggregation process not only involve the plants’ root systems, but other tissues and organs too.  This indicates that future development of plants for accumulation of elemental pollutants should focus not only on root systems, but other parts of the plant as well. The findings also suggest that suspension culture may be a very effective way for rapidly screening plants that can be used to remove undesired substances from soil and/or water systems.