Abstract Various industrial, agricultural and military operations have released huge amounts of
toxic heavy metals into the environment with deleterious effects on soils, water and air. Under metal
stress, soil microorganisms including plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB) have developed
many strategies to evade the toxicity generated by the various heavy metals. Such metal resistant
PGPB, when used as bioinoculant or biofertilizers, significantly improved the growth of plants in
heavy metal contaminated/stressed soils. Application of bacteria possessing metal detoxifying traits
along with plant-beneficial properties is a cost effective and environmental friendly metal bioremediation
approach. This review highlights the different mechanisms of metal resistance and plant
growth promotion of metal resistant PGPB as well as the recent development in exploitation of
these bacteria in bioremediation of heavy metals in different agroecosystems.