Conference Proceeding
Factors Alleviating Cadmium Toxicity in White Rot Fungus
Kuber Chandra Bhainsa1,2, Khajamohiddin Syed1 and Jagjit S Yadav1* | |
1Environmental Genetics and Molecular Toxicology Division, Department of Environmental Health, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OHIO, USA | |
2Nuclear Agriculture and Biotechnology Division, Biomedical Group, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai - 400085, India | |
Corresponding Author : | Jagjit S Yadav Environmental Genetics and Molecular Toxicology Division Department of Environmental Health University of Cincinnati College of Medicine Cincinnati, OHIO, 45267, USA Tel: 001-513-558-4806 E-mail: yadavjs@ucmail.uc.edu |
Received August 01, 2013; Accepted December 30, 2013; Published January 05, 2014 | |
Citation: Bhainsa KC, Syed K, Yadav JS (2014) Factors Alleviating Cadmium Toxicity in White Rot Fungus. J Bioremed Biodeg S18:005. doi:10.4172/2155-6199.S18-005 | |
Copyright: © 2014 Bhainsa KC, et al. This is an open-a ccess article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. | |
Related article at![]() ![]() |
Abstract
Co-contamination with heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs) poses a challenge for bioremediation of polluted environments. In order to degrade PAH-metal mixtures, the biodegrading organism needs to be in a metabolically active state to degrade the PAH moiety while being able to tolerate the co-contaminant metal(s). Due to this fact, tolerance studies were carried out on the model white rot fungus, Phanerochaete chrysosporium known to have the ability to degrade PAHs. Toxicity to the organism was investigated using cadmium (Cd) and various PAHs separately as well as in combinations and growth inhibition were measured as an index of the xenobiotic toxicity. Treatment with Cd showed inhibition of fungal growth in a dose-dependent manner. PAHs of varying ring size (3-5 ring) showed inhibitory effect in the 10-25 ppm concentration range and the effect varied with the PAH type. The pattern of initial growth inhibition followed the order pyrene>phenanthrene>benzo(a)pyrene. Both the xenobiotics (metaland PAH)at their respective inhibitory concentrations led to morphological changes in the growth pattern of the organism, observed in terms of variable mycelial pellet morphology. Interestingly, co-exposure with a PAH alleviated the Cd toxicity, indicating a protective effect of the PAHs. Taken together, this is the first report on the metal tolerance properties of this organism in a co-contamination scenarioas well as on demonstration of a protective effect of PAHs in Cd toxicity.