Chapter 2: Bioremediation of hydrocarbons through genetically modified organisms for a clean environment

Bioremediation is the conversion of toxic pollutants or substances in the environment into non-toxic components and reclaims the particular environment to its natural state, augmenting a good ecosystem. Natural attenuation in remediating the polluted environment through indigenous microbes does occur, but the duration, the metabolizing ratio of the pollutant, the quantity, and the capability are limited. Bioremediation is a viable alternative to reclaim the polluted environment from the existing physical and chemical methods. Bioremediation strategy majorly involves two types in situ and ex situ. The technology has sustainable solutions for the reclamation of polluted environments through genetically modified and engineered microorganisms. The importance of GMOs is explicit in oil spill disasters and finds vast application in remediating the polluted environment by catabolizing xenobiotic compounds, industrial waste, and hazardous substances and reducing the toxicity of the substance. The bioengineering of organisms can be achieved by modification of regulatory pathways, and construction of hybrid pathways, through manipulation of specificity of enzyme affinity with molecular tools such as conjugation, transformation, molecular cloning, horizontal transfer, electroporation, and protoplast transformation. The chapter aims to provide a detailed perspective on the aspects of bioremediation, types, methods of engineering the organisms, and their role in rejuvenating the polluted environment.