Abstract
Higher fungi such as wood rotting basidiomycota and entomopathogenic ascomycota fungi are known to form fruiting bodies to release spores. These fungal mycelia work as decomposers in ecological systems. Therefore, these higher fungi have excellent degradation potential for aromatic and aliphatic polymers, such as lignin and cuticles. There have been many reports on the degradation of organic pollutants utilizing such higher fungi. In addition to these reports, we have demonstrated that some wood rot fungi and plant worm fungi are able to degrade persistent organic pollutants (POPs), such as dioxins, their congeners, and chlorinated pesticides, in addition to polyaromatic hydrocarbons and neonicotinoid insecticides. It has also been suggested that cytochrome P450 enzymes are able to carry out the initial reaction of many degradation processes, thereby modifying the structure of these pollutants and reducing the toxicity. Furthermore, we discovered that the edible mushroom Pleurotus ostreatus and the medicinal mushroom entomopathogenic fungus Cordyceps militaris have the ability to degrade DDT and PAHs in soil, respectively. As mentioned above, higher fungi including mushrooms are able to metabolize several environmental POPs; therefore, applications using fungal mycelium such as spent mushroom substrate for bioremediation are expected to result from further study in this field.
