Preliminary evaluation of Pleurotus ostreatus for the removal of selected pharmaceuticals from hospital wastewater

Abstract

The fungus Pleurotus ostreatus was investigated to assess its ability to remove diclofenac, ketoprofen, and atenolol spiked at 10 mg/L each one in hospital wastewater. The degradation test was carried out in a fluidized bed bioreactor testing both the batch and the continuous mode (hydraulic retention time in the range 1.63-3 days). In batch mode, diclofenac disappeared in less than 24 h, ketoprofen was degraded up to almost 50% in 5 days while atenolol was not removed. In continuous mode, diclofenac and ketoprofen removals were about 100% and 70% respectively; atenolol degradation was negligible during the first 20 days but it increased up to 60% after a peak of laccase production and notable biomass growth. In order to identify the enzymatic system involved, further experiments were carried out in flasks. Purified laccase completely transformed atenolol and diclofenac in less than 5 h, but not ketoprofen. In vivo experiments suggested that cytochrome P450 could be involved in diclofenac and ketoprofen degradation, while partial correlation studies confirmed the role of laccase in atenolol and diclofenac degradation. Two intermediates of diclofenac and ketoprofen were detected by nuclear magnetic resonance. Moreover P. ostreatus was able to reduce chemical oxygen demand of the hospital wastewater which is an important advantage comparing to other fungi in order to develop a wastewater treatment process. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 33:1529-1537, 2017.

Fungal treatment of metoprolol and its recalcitrant metabolite metoprolol acid in hospital wastewater: Biotransformation, sorption and ecotoxicological impact

“…Three different species of fungi from different collections were used: Ganoderma lucidum (WRF) FP-58537-Sp strain, United States Department of Agriculture, Madison, Wis. Collection); Trametes versicolor (WRF) (American Type Culture Collection #42530 strain); and Pleurotus ostreatus was isolated from a fruiting body collected from rotting wood, identified through molecular analysis (Palli et al, 2017). G. lucidum and T. versicolor were subcultured on 2% malt extract agar petri plates while P. ostreatus was maintained on malt extract agar (MEA) plates (ATCC medium 325).…”

“…However, alternative treatments based on fungi have been reported to be effective in the removal of micropollutants, thanks to its unspecific ligninolytic systems and intracellular enzymatic complexes (Asgher et al, 2008). Trametes versicolor, Ganoderma lucidum and Pleurotus ostreatus (part of the Basidiomycota division and the Agaricomycetes class) have been successfully applied M A N U S C R I P T A C C E P T E D ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 4 for the elimination of certain pharmaceuticals (Cruz-Morató et al, 2014;Llorca et al, 2018;Marco-Urrea et al, 2009;Palli et al, 2017) with the overall load elimination of 83% in optimal conditions (Cruz-Morató et al, 2014). Among the extracellular enzymes responsible of pharmaceutical degradation lignin peroxidase, manganese peroxidase and laccase are the most important ones (Asgher et al, 2008).…”

“…The low specificity of these enzymes make the selected fungi suitable for bioremediation processes. However, while some authors have successfully applied this kind of treatment for pharmaceutical removal (Cruz-Morató et al, 2014;Llorca et al, 2018;Marco-Urrea et al, 2009;Palli et al, 2017), less attention has been paid to the transformation products (TPs) generated, which may sometimes be more persistent or toxic than the parent compound (Escher and Fenner, 2011;Jaén-Gil et al, 2018). Considering that not only PhACs are present in HWW effluents but also their human metabolites, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has set guidelines on environmental risk assessment indicating that relevant metabolites are those excreted in ≥ 10% of the administered dose (Wharf and Kingdom, 2010).…”

Constructive use of filamentous fungi to remove pharmaceutical substances from wastewater

“…For instance, previous studies have shown that ketoprofen is not completely removed in most cases of wastewater treatment [33]. Additionally, Palli et al [16] have demonstrated that heat-killed biomass of T. versicolor can remove only 15% of ketoprofen. Moreover, Marco-Urrea et al [15] proved that the enzyme system of T. versicolor is not involved in ketoprofen degradation.…”

“…For instance, Fusarium solani was able to degrade the emerging water pollutants like di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP), fluoranthene, and aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) in a batch-scale experiment in a synthetic media for fungi [14]. Likewise, several studies have demonstrated high removal efficiency of hazardous compounds as progesterone, atenolol, ibuprofen, diclofenac, and ketoprofen by Trametes versicolor, Pleurotus ostreatus, Trichoderma reesei, and Irpex lacteus [15][16][17][18] in laboratory-scale experiments under sterile conditions. Based on these investigations, it has been proposed that these fungi might be suitable candidates to remove hazardous substances.…”