Fungi, eukaryotic microorganisms involved in bioremediation of contaminated environments

Environmental contamination is a serious worldwide problem. A wide variety of chemical compounds and toxic particles are dumped daily in the environment from industries and overcrowded cities. These compounds contaminate the water, land, and air, directly impacting the environment and human health. Currently, bioremediation has emerged as an option to remove these contaminants from polluted sites. Bioremediation is a biotechnological process that is environment-friendly, which involves the use of living organisms such as bacteria, fungi, plants, or the combination of them. Fungi have been used successfully in the decontamination and detoxification of contaminated environments, due to their genetic machinery as well as metabolomic and structural characteristics that allow them to grow and develop under different environmental conditions, even in extreme environments. In this work, we made a deep and updated discussion of the fungi that have been applied in bioremediation and their biological mechanism involved in this process, as well as genes and enzymes with important roles in bioremediation and the symbiotic/nonsymbiotic relationships between fungi with other microorganisms and plants for the use in the bioremediation of contaminated sites. © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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