Abstract
Soil pollution from heavy metals, especially mercury, is an environmental problem for human health. Biological approaches offer interesting tools, which necessarily involve the selection of organisms capable of transforming the environment via bioremediation. To evaluate the potential use of microorganisms in phytorhizoremediation, bacterial strains were isolated from rhizospheric and bulk soil under conditions of chronic natural mercury, which were identified and characterized by studying the following: (i) their plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) activities; and (ii) their maximum bactericide concentration of mercury. Information regarding auxin production, phosphate solubilization, siderophore synthesis and 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid deaminase (ACCd) capacity of the isolates was compiled in order to select the strains that fit potential biotechnological use. To achieve this objective, the present work proposes the Bio-Mercury Remediation Suitability Index (BMR-SI), which reflects the integral behavior of the strains for heavy metal polluted soil bioremediation. Only those strains that rigorously fulfilled all of the established criteria were selected for further assays.