Assessment of the Streptomyces-plant system to mitigate the impact of Cr(VI) and lindane in experimental soils

Abstract

Phytoremediation techniques have been proposed as ecological methods to clean up contaminated sites. This study is aimed to evaluate the effect of the Streptomyces sp. Waksman & Henrici and Zea mays L. plant system on the dissipation of Cr(VI) and/or lindane from a co-contaminated soil, being 2 mg kg−1 of lindane and 150 mg kg−1 of chromium used. Lindane dissipation was improved in the presence of plant-microorganism association; however, Cr(VI) removal was higher when plants or the microorganism were separately. In co-contaminated systems, chromium content in plant tissues was lower than metal content in plants grown only with Cr(VI), suggesting that lindane could interfere with metal accumulation in the plant. The high malondialdehyde (MDA) concentration detected in non-inoculated plants grown with chromium could be consequence of high metal concentration in plant tissues. Interestingly, plants inoculated with Streptomyces sp. Z38 growing with Cr(VI) showed decrease in MDA concentration, indicating that the bacterium could activate defense mechanisms in the plant. Also, inoculated plants showed the highest value of superoxide dismutase activity. Lettuce plants used as bioindicators grew better in biologically treated soils compared with lettuce grown on non-treated soil. The results presented in this work provide the basis that will allow the optimization of future trials on a larger scale.