Phytoremediation toward Air Pollutants: Latest Status and Current Developments

In recent years, air pollution has become one of the major environmental concerns that threaten health of the living organisms and its surroundings. Increasing urbanization, industrialization, and other anthropogenic activities impaired the air quality of indoor and outdoor environment. However, global organizations are focusing on ecological and biological means of solutions to reduce or eliminate dangerous contaminants from ecosystems in a sustainable manner. In this fact, plants are capable of improving or cleansing air quality and reduce the concentration of harmful pollutants from the environment through various remediation processes. Plants interact with air pollutants and fix them through various biological mechanisms in both associated and non-associated forms of microbes. In association forms, the mutualistic interaction of plant and microbes leads to higher growth efficiency of plants and results in enhanced pollutant degradation in rhizosphere as well as phyllosphere. In this background, the book chapter provides a comprehensive discussion of the existing literature and recent advances in phytoremediation process for the mitigation of harmful air pollutants. The role of indoor plants and aids for the enhancement of phytoremediation process towards air pollutants are also discussed

Microgreen: A tiny plant with superfood potential

The design of novel and functional foods is a major driver of innovation in the food industry, which strives to meet consumer's rising demand and expectations for healthy foods. In recent years, microgreens have received popularity as functional foods due to their high-density nutrients and bioactive or secondary metabolite content. The morphology of microgreens is comprised of well-developed cotyledonalary leaves, immature true leaves, and a central stem. The scientific literature has documented numerous studies on microgreens such as nutritional content assessment, metabolite accumulation, nutraceutical potential, and shelf life enhancement. Physical, chemical, biological, and cultivation factors significantly increased the microgreen’s photosynthetic efficiency, growth, nutrient profile, antioxidant activity, and metabolite content. Using omics data, scientists have investigated the underlying molecular mechanism and potential gene(s) associated with nutrients, specialized metabolites, stress resistance, shelf-life enhancement, and disease resistance in nutraceutical plants