Penicillium sp. as an organism that degrades endosulfan and reduces its genotoxic effects

Abstract

Endosulfan is an organochloride and persistent pesticide that has caused concern because of its impact in the environment and its toxicity to and bioaccumulation in living organisms. In this study, we isolated an endosulfan-degrading fungus from the activated sludge from an industrial wastewater treatment plant. Through repetitive enrichment and successive subculture in media containing endosulfan as the sole carbon source, a fungus designated CHE 23 was isolated. Based on a phylogenetic analysis, strain CHE 23 was assigned to the genus Penicillium sp. In a mineral salt medium with 50 mg/l endosulfan as the sole source carbon, CHE 23 removed the added endosulfan in a period of six days. To verify the decrease in endosulfan toxicity due to the activity of the fungus, we performed genotoxicity tests trough the single cell gel electrophoresis assay or comet assay, with Eisenia fetida as the bioindicator species. This organism was exposed to the supernatants of the culture of the fungus and endosulfan. Our results indicated that the genotoxicity of endosulfan was completely reduced due the activity of this fungus. These results suggest that the Penicillium sp. CHE 23 strain can be used to degrade endosulfan residues and/or for water and soil bioremediation processes without causing toxicity problems, which are probably due to the generation of no-toxic metabolites during biodegradation.

Effect of endosulfan on immunological competence of layer birds

“…Endosulfan (6, 7, 8, 9, 10,10-hexachloro-1, 5, 5a, 6, 9, 9a hexa hydro-6, 9-methano 2, 3, 4 benzo (e) dioxathiepen-3oxide) is an important chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticide chemically similar to aldrin, chlordane, and heptachlor, used against insect pest for a number of diverse applications [ 1 ] and is a neurotoxin which blocks the inhibitory receptors of the central nervous system, disrupts the ionic channels, and destroys the integrity of the nerve cells [ 2 ]. Poultry farming in India is an internal part of the agricultural industry [ 3 , 4 ].…”

Fenton-Mediated Biodegradation of Chlorendic Acid – A Highly Chlorinated Organic Pollutant – By Fungi Isolated From a Polluted Site

“…Penicillium spp. have already been reviewed for their capacity to degrade organic pollutants (Leitão, 2009; Pinedo-Rivilla et al, 2009; Maqbool et al, 2016) and were identified as degraders of hydrocarbons (Chaillan et al, 2004), terbuthylazine (Pinto et al, 2012), bensulphuron-methyl (Peng et al, 2012), chlorfenvinphos (Oliveira et al, 2015), and endosulfan, all structurally related to chlorendic acid (Mohanasrinivasan et al, 2013; Romero-Aguilar et al, 2014). Also, Talaromyces spp.…”

Endosulfan removal through bioremediation, photocatalytic degradation, adsorption and membrane separation processes: A review

“…Naturally occurring bacterial degradation of endosulfan in the environment could be exploited in treatment processes. Quite a few studies of these types of bioremediation have been published and the results and interpretations are diverse in terms of the tolerances exhibited for endosulfan and the extent of decontamination thereof [33,[90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99]. These studies have been performed in solid matrices such as soil, sediments and food processing wastes, where the endosulfan degrading microorganisms have solid support and carbon source.…”