Screening of Phosphorus-Accumulating Fungi and Their Potential for Phosphorus Removal from Waste Streams

Abstract

While bacteria have been primarily studied for phosphorus (P) removal in wastewater treatment, fungi and their ability to accumulate intracellular polyphosphate are less investigated. P-accumulating fungal strains were screened from soybean plants and surrounding soil by flask cultivation with potato dextrose broth and KH2PO4 in this study. Mucor circinelloides was selected for its high efficiency in P removal efficiency and high cellular P content. Neisser staining and growth-curve analysis confirmed that M. circinelloides stored polyphosphate intracellularly by luxury phosphate uptake. The effect of culture medium compositions on P removal efficiency and cellular P content was also investigated. Monosaccharides (such as glucose and fructose) and organic nitrogen (N, such as urea, and peptone) promoted fungi growth and P accumulation. M. circinelloides also preferred organic phosphates. When glucose, urea, and phytic acid sodium salt were used as the carbon, N, and P source, respectively, the maximum utilization efficiency was 40.1% for P and 7.08% for cellular P content. In addition, the potential of M. circinelloides for P removal from waste streams was investigated. Compared with the non-inoculated control culture, inoculation with M. circinelloides improved the soluble P removal in treating wastewater centrate, screened manure, and digested manure.

Fungi-based treatment of brewery wastewater—biomass production and nutrient reduction

“…The cited study reported reductions of PO 4 3 -P in the range of those reported in the present study: 28.3–44%. Interestingly, a positive relationship between fungal cellular P content and increasing organic nitrogen in wastewater have been reported (Ye et al 2015). Thus, fungi can display increasing P removal when applied to different waste streams.…”

Phosphorus recovery from dairy manure wastewater by fungal biomass treatment

“…Especially for M. circinelloides cells, lower P removal efficiency than that of control means inherent P in fungal cells was partially released. At pH from 2 to 4, the fungal cells showed the best P removal performance (P removal efficiency was 80.3, 84.7 and 82.6% at pH of 2, 3 and 4, respectively), because more insoluble P was dissolved to soluble P, the bioavailable form for M. circinelloides cells to assimilate (Ye et al ., ), and M. circinelloides can grow under a condition with low pH (Xia et al ., ). With the pH increased from 3 to 7, the reduction of P solubility led to a decreasing trend of P removal efficiency by FBT.…”

“…b–d). The decrement of TN was larger than that of TAN, indicating that M. circinelloides cells were able to assimilate N in other forms besides TAN, such as nitrate and urea (Ye et al ., ). It was observed that the concentration of TN and TAN in FBT group increased obviously after 24 h, because of the anaerobic bioconversion of proteins existing in DMW to amino acids and then to ammonia, caused by oxygen consumption in the flasks (Cheng and Liu, ).…”

“…Mucor circinelloides ( M. circinelloides ), a filamentous fungal strain, has been proved to be a typical PAO with outstanding preference on cellular polyphosphate accumulation, and the highest cellular P content could reach as high as 7.08% (Zhang and Hu, ; Ye et al ., ). In this study, M. circinelloides was used for P recovery from DMW.…”

New perspectives for the design of sustainable bioprocesses for phosphorus recovery from waste

“…The accumulation of P in Poly-P granules has also been reported in these organisms. For instance, Mucor circinelloides reached a cellular P-content of 7.08% (Ye et al, 2015). Several yeasts were also reported as Paccumulating organisms, and the mechanisms of P-accumulation have already been studied at a genetic level in Saccharomyces cervisiae (Watanabe et al, 2008).…”