Marine-Derived Fungi: Promising Candidates for Enhanced Bioremediation (original) (raw)

Novel Fungal Enzymes in Environmental Remediation

Abstract: Industrial revolution vis-a-vis expansion has been proved to be a bane in boon for human civilization. Albeit, with great leaps in terms of industrial automation our life-style pattern has improved, but silently also convoluted the sustenance of biomes on this earth. Industrial by-products and effluents insipidly pollute all the necessary and essential parameters of growth for the entire living world; as a result bringing forth intolerable desolations to survive. Increasing discharge and improper management of gaseous, liquid and solid industrial wastes have emerged to be a great threat issuing burning concerns amongst the scientific communities over their economic treatment and safe disposal. Fancifully amidst these threats, bioremediation has been an emerging and expanding area of environmental biotechnology and is considered to be the application of biological processes to the treatment of different pollutants. The diverse array of metabolic versatility of microorganisms emphasizes their practical applicability to all bioremediation processes. Till today, almost all the work done has been focused on organic pollutants, although a great number/group of microorganisms do select solid and liquid wastes, natural materials and inorganic pollutants such as toxic metals and metalloids to transform or detoxify into simpler conjugates. However, the majority of the scientific research methodologies, developed till date employed/exploited bacteria and there is a dearth of attitude to find the potential roles, involvements and possibilities of fungi for environmental bioremediation. There are voluminously-growing pertinent evidences available regarding the metabolic and morphological versatility of different groups of fungi and the fundamental importance of fungi, as decomposers, in the environment with regard to decomposition and transformation of both organic and inorganic xenobiotics with concomitant recycling of elements, which is of appropriate relevance in modern-day waste management. In recent years, a lot of effort has been in progress on the development and optimization of bioremediation processes with judicious emphasis on the study of their enzyme systems involved in biodegradation of industrial pollutants. In laboratories, many new strains have been identified, brought to cultural practices and their enzymes of interest have been isolated, purified and characterized. In this article, we have tried to cover the latest developments on different fungal enzyme systems of interest, their low molecular mass mediators and their potential use for bioremediation of industrial pollutants. These developments together with the growing importance of fungi as model systems in eukaryotic cell and molecular biology, physiology and biochemistry, provides the rationale for this work. Key Words: Basidiomycetes, Bioremediation, Biotransformation, Laccase., Lignin peroxidase, Manganese peroxidase, Wood rotting fungi, Xenobiotics,

Pollutants Biodegradation by Fungi

Current Organic Chemistry, 2009

One of the major problems facing the industrialized world today is the contamination of soils, ground water, sediments, surfacewater and air with hazardous and toxic chemicals. The application of microorganisms which degrade or transform hazardous organic contaminants to less toxic compounds has become increasingly popular in recent years. This review, with approximately 300 references covering the period 2005-2008, describes the use of fungi as a method of bioremediation to clean up environmental pollutants.

Role of Fungi in Bioremediation and Environmental Sustainability

Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2021

Bioremediation is an environmentally friendly process using many different microbes to weaken and detoxify harmful pollutants in a parallel or sequential manner. Microorganisms (e.g., fungi and bacteria), green plants, or combinations of them used together can convert toxic pollutants into carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O), inorganic salts, microbial biomass, and other products that are less toxic—in effect, accelerating natural metabolic processes that result in these outcomes (Egamberdieva et al. 2008; Gupta and Sinha 2007; Pawar 2012; MohammadiSichani et al. 2019). In recent years, interest in exploring microbial biodegradation of toxins has been amplifed by human attempts to achieve a sustainable approach to purifcation and restoration of polluted habitats. Cleaning up polluted soil and water by use of organisms—including fungi, bacteria, and their enzymes—is a cost-effcient, sustainable, and natural approach (in comparison with other typical techniques) (Kumar and Dwivedi 2019). In bioremedial technologies, microbes are introduced to improve decomposition or elimination of organic and inorganic pollutants and harmful contaminants. Pollutant bioremediation can be achieved by various methods such as natural attenuation, biostimulation, bioaugmentation, or combinations of these methods (Bisht et al. 2019). Because of their consistent morphology and versatile metabolic ability, fungi play crucial roles as degraders and symbionts in the environment as a whole, including soil and aquatic habitats; thus, they are particularly suitable for bioremediation. Mycoremediation is a method of bioremediation using fungi to decontaminate contaminated areas. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) primarily perform their functions in soil, achieving and altering the soil microbial balance. AMF primarily enhance soil microbe growth and restrict plant pathogen proliferation. Because of their symbiotic nature

Role of Fungal enzymes in Polymer degradation: A Mini review

Extracellular enzymes or exoenzymes are synthesized inside the cell and then secreted outside the cell, where their function is to break down complex macromolecules into smaller units to be taken up by the cell for growth and assimilation. These enzymes degrade complex organic matter such as cellulose and hemicellulose into simple sugars that enzyme-producing organisms use as a source of carbon, energy, and nutrients. Grouped as hydrolases, lyases, oxidoreductases and transferases, these extracellular enzymes control soil enzyme activity through efficient degradation of biopolymers. In their review we are focusing on fungal enzymes and their abilities to degrade polymers to protect environment.

Biodegradation by Fungi for Humans and Plants Nutrition

IntechOpen, 2021

Fungi being achlorophyllous depends on other living organisms for their food either being parasite or saprophyte. Saprophytic fungi are good biodegraders. Through their enzymatic batteries, they can degrade any organic substances. Most of the time during the processes of degradation, macrofungi (mushrooms) are occurred as per the climatic conditions prevailing in the particular locations. Micro and macrofungi are considered a good source of human nutrition and medicine since time immemorial. Some of the fungi which are commonly known as mycorrhizae facilitate nutrients to more than 90% of green plants. Fungi play a basic role in plant physiology and help in the biosynthesis of different plant hormones that provides the flexibility of plant to withstand adverse environmental stress, the whole fungi are more friend than foe.

Screening of fungal strains capable of degrading organopollutants

White rot fungi appear to have a great potential for bioremediation applications due to their ability to degrade a wide range of structurally diverse chloroaromatic, nitroaromatic and polyaromatic compounds. This potential stems from their ability to produce extracellular peroxidases and laccases that catalyze the breakdown of organic pollutants via free radical–mediated reactions. In this study, several species of macromycetes were collected all over Greece from various substrates and isolated in pure cultures. Eight strains of Basidiomycetes were evaluated for their ligninolytic potential and were selected for screening. Decolourisation of the model synthetic dye, Poly R-478 was observed in all fungal strains in agreement with their high ligninolytic enzyme activities. Degenerate primers corresponding to the copper-binding regions in N-terminal domains of known basidiomycetes were used to detect laccase gene. All strains gave the expected PCR product of about 200 bp. The strains w...

Strategies to Improve Remediation Technology Using Fungi

Microbial Rejuvenation of Polluted Environment, 2021

Fungi have competence to degrade hazardous contaminants by excreting the enzymes and other metabolites which decrease the risk associated with the toxicants and heavy metals. Furthermore, they have capability to form the mycelial networks which influence the remediation process. In fungal kingdom, ascomycetes, basidiomycetes, deuteromycetes, and zygomycetes are the major fungi which are mainly involved in the remediation process. These fungi can degrade wide array of hazardous contaminants such as heavy metals, pesticides, nitroaromatics, endocrine disrupting chemicals, antibiotics, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. This chapter also describes different strategies like utilization of multi-omics tools, screening the fungal isolates, genetic modification, and development of consortia for multiple

Marine-derived fungi as biocatalysts

Frontiers in Microbiology

Marine microorganisms account for over 90% of ocean biomass and their diversity is believed to be the result of their ability to adapt to extreme conditions of the marine environment. Biotransformations are used to produce a wide range of high-added value materials, and marine-derived fungi have proven to be a source of new enzymes, even for activities not previously discovered. This review focuses on biotransformations by fungi from marine environments, including bioremediation, from the standpoint of the chemical structure of the substrate, and covers up to September 2022.

Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE) Analysis of the Fungi Involved in Biodegradation

Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE) Analysis of the Fungi Involved in Biodegradation, 2022

Tracing fungal communities through denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) is an incredibly affordable, exploratory, and qualitative molecular approach in a complex ecosystem. Microbial community structure can be tremendously affected in such an ecosystem due to intense biotic and abiotic influences. This technique allows biologists to fingerprint the fungal diversity in a degrading environment based on differences in DNA sequence composition of double-stranded nucleic acids among fungal communities. This protocol gives insights into the detailed process of fungal DNA isolation, 18S or 28S ribosomal DNA, nuclear internal transcribed spacers 1 and 2 with 5.8S (ITS) gene amplification by PCR, gel electrophoresis, staining, and visualization. In addition to the process involved in community assessment, it also emphasizes important dos and don'ts, which further reduce the possibilities of errors enabling DGGE more efficient for the analysis.