Advances in myco-remediation strategies for emerging contaminants: a comprehensive review
Zain Ali, Muhammad Abdullah, Fizza Hafeez, Abdulrahman Alasmari, Fatima Sardar, Jamil Ahmad, Farooq Ahmad, Manawwer Alam, Muhammad Talha Yasin
Abstract
Environmental pollution has recently become an increasing concern for both ecology and global public health. Industries, agricultural, and household sectors are continuously emitting extremely harmful pollutants into the environment. Various strategies have been developed to reduce these pollutants, which have caused detrimental effects and chaos in the environment. Fungi are nature’s ultimate decomposers that produce a variety of extracellular enzymes, such as esterase, cutinase, laccase, peroxidase, etc., which are most efficient in transforming resistant, hazardous, and emerging pollutants. This review explores the cost-effective and sustainable mycoremediation strategies such as biosorption, bioaccumulation, biodegradation and the potential of fungi to break down synthetic dyes, pesticides, cyanotoxins, hazardous pharmaceutical substances and microplastics. The present study focuses on recent developments and technological advances such as role of microbial consortia, transcriptomics, metagenomics and microbial engineering which are more frequently employed to improve environmental remediation of persistent emerging contaminants. Further, the fungal mechanism of action and enzyme engineering to boost the remediation potential of desired enzymes; crucial in the degradation of emerging contaminants, have been discussed. This review emphasized fungi’s critical role in detoxifying and transforming emerging pollutants and offers thoughtful insights for researchers and policymakers to employ myco-remediation to establish an effective and sustainable environment.