Mycoremediation of Heavy Metals Contaminated Soil by Using Indigenous Metallotolerant Fungi

The present study was aimed to identify the indigenous fungal strains which could possibly be applied to the biore-mediation of heavy metal-contaminated soil. The contaminated soil samples of Korangi Industrial Estate Karachi were found to have total concentration of Cu 1.044 mgL¹, and Pb 0.631 mgL^–1. A total of eight indigenous strains of the fungus were isolated and screened for bioremediation capacity from heavy metals-contaminated soil. For the bioremediation of Lead (Pb) these same indigenous eight fungal strains were used for biological remediation. All the fungal isolated with enhanced bioremediation capability were through phenotypic and genotypical characterization. The topology of the phylograms established that the fungal isolates used in this study were allocated to: K1 (Penicillium notatum), K2 (Aspergillus parasiticus), K3 (Aspergillus fumigatus), K4 (Aspergillus flavus), K5 (Aspergillus terries), K6 (Fusarium solani), K7 (Penicillium chrysogenum), K8 (Aspergillus niger), K9 (Penicillium piceum) and K10 (Penicillium restrictum). Thus, K8 fungal isolate was found to be more efficient with maximum bioremediation capacity, for copper and lead removal efficiency, and selected for FTIR and SEM to find out the uptake of Cu and Pb which of the functional groups are involved, and further to detect the effects of bioleaching of both heavy metals on to the surface of K8 fungus biomass. The current study indicates that indigenous fungal isolates could be used with high potency to remediate or clean up the heavy metals-contaminated soil either by the technique of in situ or ex-situ bioremediation.