Vetiver Grass: a potential tool for phytoremediation of iron ore mine site spoil dump
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1
University of Calcutta, Department of Botany, India
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2
Indian Institute Of Technology-KGP, Department of Mining Engineering, India
The impact of mining has lead to the generation of a large amount of spoil dumps that has become dangerous to human health, wildlife and biodiversity. Thus it is essential that the post mining areas and waste land generated need to be rapidly vegetated. Vetiver grass (Chrysopogon zizanioides (L.) Roberty) is a tropical plant which grows naturally in various soil conditions and is well known for its ability to resist DNA damage while growing on typically polluted soil conditions. The spoil dumps from the iron mine site is unstable and inhospitable for plant growth due to presence of various toxic heavy metals like - Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Pb, Ni, Cr, Cd etc. Vetiver system is an efficient bio-engineering tool for reclaiming such spoil dumps. There are 12 known species of Vetiver grass, and many hundreds of different cultivars that are exploited by users depending on need. In the present study we selected the polyploid infertile variety of vetiver and carried pot experiments. Vetiver plants grown on the iron ore mine spoil dump show distinct differences in their growth with fewer numbers of tillers, reduced chlorophyll content, upregulation of antioxidant enzymes and increased proline content. To investigate the level of DNA damage incurred and change in the genetic stability Comet assay and RAPD analysis were performed. Results confirmed that Vetiver grass can serve as a model species for phytoremediating the iron ore mine spoil dumps.
Acknowledgements
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) sanction no. 38(1367)/13/ EMR II "Investigation on iron ore mine site restoration and species performance in spoils dumps slope stabilization with Vetiver System Technology"
Keywords:
Chrysopogon zizanioides,
Comet Assay,
RAPD markers,
Antioxidant Enzymes,
iron ore mine
Conference:
ICAW 2015 - 11th International Comet Assay Workshop, Antwerpen, Belgium, 1 Sep - 4 Sep, 2015.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Ecogenotoxicology
Citation:
Mukherjee
A,
Goswami
P,
Banerjee
R and
Pathak
K
(2015). Vetiver Grass: a potential tool for phytoremediation of iron ore mine site spoil dump.
Front. Genet.
Conference Abstract:
ICAW 2015 - 11th International Comet Assay Workshop.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fgene.2015.01.00009
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Received:
02 Jun 2015;
Published Online:
23 Jun 2015.
*
Correspondence:
Prof. Anita Mukherjee, University of Calcutta, Department of Botany, Kolkata, 700 019, India, anitamukherjee28@gmail.com