Mycoremediation for sustainable remediation of environmental pollutants

Abstract

Mycoremediation is an eco-friendly and sustainable biotechnology approach that helps detoxify the environment by removing heavy metals, pesticides, and organic pollutants, particularly in agricultural settings. This method enhances soil health while supporting crop productivity. Despite the identification of approximately 150,000 fungal species, only a limited number have been explored for mycoremediation. While wood-decaying fungi are well-known for their ligninolytic enzymes, other fungal communities—such as endophytic, soil, and aquatic fungi beyond the saprophytic category—have received comparatively less attention. This review offers a comprehensive overview of the mechanisms employed by diverse ecological groups of fungi for contaminant remediation, including biotransformation, bioabsorption, and immobilization. The findings highlight that mycoremediation is an eco-friendly approach to mitigating the toxic effects of heavy metals like cadmium, silver, lead, and mercury, as well as organic pollutants such as phenanthrene, naphthalene, and benzo[a]pyrene. Key factors influencing the efficiency of mycoremediation include temperature, rhizosphere pH, redox potential, and substrate concentration, all of which can either enhance or limit the process. The review also describes on the significance of mycoremediation in agriculture and how it can improve soil health, which may be utilized for increasing crop yield. Despite the promising findings, significant challenges remain in replicating natural conditions within laboratory environments and effectively translating these results into practical applications. Although fungal enzymes offer hope for bioremediation, productivity and stability-related issues limit their efficiency. One approach for increasing enzyme productivity and resistance to pollutants is genetic engineering. Overexpression and mutation can enhance enzyme attributes so that these enzymes may degrade pollutants more efficiently. Furthermore, future work is required to screen strains on a large scale for endophytic fungi and their application in the biodegradation of industrial pollutants.