Journal of Environmental Biology

Enzymatic bioremediation of polyaromatic hydrocarbons by fungal consortia enriched from petroleum contaminated soil and oil seeds 

V. Balaji^1,3*, P. Arulazhagan² and P. Ebenezer³

^1,3Biorefining Research Institute, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario-P7B 5E1, Canada

²Centre of Excellence in Environmental Studies, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah-21589, Saudi Arabia

³Centre for Advanced Studies in Botany, University of Madras, Guindy Campus, Chennai-600 025, India

*Corresponding Authors Email : kvsbalaj@gmail.com

Publication Data

Paper received:

16 May 2013

Revised received:

25 September 2013

Re-revised received:

25 October 2013

Accepted:

30 October 2013

Abstract

The present study focuses on fungal strains capable of secreting extracellular enzymes by utilizing hydrocarbons present in the contaminated soil. Fungal strains were enriched from petroleum hydrocarbons contaminated soil samples collected from Chennai city, India. The potential fungi were isolated and screened for their enzyme secretion such as lipase, laccase, peroxidase and protease and also evaluated fungal enzyme mediated PAHs degradation. Total, 21 potential PAHs degrading fungi were isolated from PAHs contaminated soil, which belongs to 9 genera such as Aspergillus, Curvularia, Drechslera, Fusarium, Lasiodiplodia, Mucor, Penicillium, Rhizopus, Trichoderma, and two oilseed-associated fungal genera such as Colletotrichum and Lasiodiplodia were used to test their efficacy in degradation of PAHs in polluted soil. Maximum lipase production was obtained with P.? chrysogenum, M. racemosus and L. theobromae VBE1 under optimized cultural condition, which? utilized PAHs in contaminated soil as? sole carbon source. Fungal strains, P. chrysogenum, M. racemosus and L. theobromae VBE1, as consortia, used in the present study were capable of degrading branched alkane isoprenoids such as pristine (C17) and pyrene (C18) present in PAHs contaminated soil with high lipase production. The fungal consortia acts as potential candidate for bioremediation of PAHs contaminated environments. ? 

 Key words

Bioremediation, Fungal enzymes, L. theobromae VBE1, Lipase, PAHs-contaminated soil 

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