Resistance to some Heavy Metals among Fungal Flora of Raw Refinery Effluent

Abstract

Investigations were carried out to assess the capacity of strains of fungi isolated from raw flowing effluent and effluent retention pond of Kaduna refinery plant to resist and grow in the presence of lead (Pb), nickel (Ni) and cadmium (Cd) invitro. Fungi belonging to the genera including Aspergillus spp., Penicillium spp., Fusarium spp., Curvularia spp. and Nigrospora spp. were isolated from the study sites. The isolates were inoculated into duplicate 100ml flask containing 50ml of potato dextrose broth (PDB) supplemented with 5,10 and 15ppm of Pb, Ni, and Cd. Each test isolate was inoculated into duplicate flask containing the same medium without the heavy metals to serve as control. All inoculated flasks were incubated aerobically at room temperature on a rotator shaker for 7days. The mycelial mats were harvested by filtering the cultures through preweighed filter paper (No.1). The filters bearing the mycelial mats were dried in an oven at 70 o C for 18hours. It was observed that most of the isolates tested resisted and grew in the medium containing 5 to 15ppm of tested heavy metals. Yield of dry mycelia mats in the heavy metal supplemented medium were also comparable to those grown in heavy metal free PDB medium. It was concluded that, these genera of fungi could be playing an important role in the removal of these metals usually present in the raw effluent during the period of residency in the retention pond through bioaccumulation. ©JASEM

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“…The ubiquitous nature of Aspergillus may be due to their saprophytic feeding habit as well as their ability to grow in a wide range of environment 25 . This observation sturdily indicates that members of these fungal genera isolated, have the capacity to survive and withstand toxic effects of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons 26 .…”

“…A portion (0.1 ml) of the residue of each sample was spread-plated on sterile potato dextrose agar (PDA) (Oxoid ltd, Basinstoke, United Kingdom) and Malt Extract Agar (MEA) (Oxoid ltd, Basinstoke, United Kingdom) plates in duplicate (containing 50 µg/L of chloramphenicol), using sterile bent glass rod. The plates were incubated at room temperature (30 °C) for 7days 26 .…”

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“…The genus Aspergillus is one of the most well researched fungi genera with over 200 o cially recognized species (Oyebanji et al, 2018). The ubiquitous nature of Aspergillus may be due to their saprophytic feeding habit as well as their ability to grow in a wide range of environment (Machido et al, 2014). This observation sturdily indicates that members of these fungal genera isolated, have the capacity to survive and withstand toxic effects of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (Ezeonuegbu et al, 2014).…”