Mycoremediation of Soils Polluted with Trichloroethylene: First Evidence of Pleurotus Genus Effectiveness

Abstract

Trichloroethylene (TCE) is a proven carcinogenic chlorinated organic compound widely used as a solvent in industrial cleaning solutions; it is easily found in the soil, air, and water and is a hazardous environmental pollutant. Most studies have attempted to remove TCE from air and water using different anaerobic bacteria species. In addition, a few have used white-rot fungi, although there are hardly any in soil. The objective of the present work is to assess TCE removal efficiency using two species of the genus Pleurotus that have not been tested before: Pleurotus ostreatus and Pleurotus eryngii, growing on a sandy loam soil. These fungi presented different intra- and extracellular enzymatic systems (chytochrome P450 (CYP450), laccase, Mn peroxidase (MnP)) capable of aerobically degrading TCE to less harmful compounds. The potential toxicity of TCE to P. ostreatus and P. eryngii was firstly tested in a TCE-spiked liquid broth (70 mg L−1 and 140 mg L−1) for 14 days. Then, both fungi were assessed for their ability to degrade the pollutant in sandy loam soil spiked with 140 mg kg−1 of TCE. P. ostreatus and P. eryngii improved the natural dissipation of TCE from soil by 44%. Extracellular enzymes were poorly expressed, but mainly in the presence of the contaminant, in accordance with the hypothesis of the involvement of CYP450.

A Review about the Mycoremediation of Soil Impacted by War-like Activities: Challenges and Gaps

“…Thus, fungi are considered as one of the biological agents that perform remediation. Figure 6 Fungi can be employed to promote treatment in several matrices polluted with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) [119], petroleum hydrocarbons [120][121][122][123][124], biphenyls [125], phthalates [126], polychlorinated herbicides such as polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins-PCDD [127], chlorinated insecticides and pesticides [128], textiles dyes [129], pharmaceutical substances like antibiotics sulfonamides [130], and norfloxacin [131]. Toxic metals, including cadmium, copper, mercury, lead, manganese, nickel, zinc, and iron, and metalloids, with an emphasis on arsenic, are extensively used in different types of industries, being released in high amounts to their effluents, causing direct or indirect environmental contamination where fungi can act to remediate [132][133][134][135][136].…”

Assessment of Different Spent Mushroom Substrates to Bioremediate Soils Contaminated with Petroleum Hydrocarbons

“…The composted SMS is an effective adsorbent to minimize the availability of metals in soil and enhanced the phytoremediation of mining soil [28], reduced the leaching of pesticides from soil [29] and minimized the impact of herbicides in soil microbial community [30]. The ability of SMS to remove a wide variety of organic contaminants from soils was reported in different publications [20,25,31]. Hence, we hypothesize that the use of SMS to remediate polluted soils with petroleum hydrocarbons is a valuable strategy to re-use this agricultural waste.…”

PUF-Immobilized Bjerkandera adusta DSM 3375 as a Tool for Bioremediation of Creosote Oil Contaminated Soil

“…These microorganisms are able to produce ligninolytic enzymes, of which laccase (Lac, EC 1.10.3.2), manganese-dependent peroxidase (MnP, EC 1.11.1.13), and lignin peroxidase are the most important (LiP, EC 1.11.1.14). Because of their low substrate specificity, these enzymes catalyze not only the oxidation of lignin, but also the oxidation of a wide range of structurally varied chemicals that are difficult to degrade, such as PAHs [ 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ], synthetic dyes [ 20 , 21 ], chlorinated organic compounds [ 22 ], pesticides [ 23 , 24 ], or residues of drugs [ 25 ]. Because of their low substrate specificity, these proteins are also beneficial in the decomposition of creosote.…”