Chapter 13 - Role of fungi in bio-production of nanomaterials at megascale

Abstract

For the development of green technologies in materials synthesis, the aspect of nanotechnology considered as an important technology. The mycogenic biosynthesis of nanoparticles is an ecologically nontoxic method as compared to other methods (physical and chemical). Due to their nanoscale structures, these nanoparticles have a wide range of applications in various fields like targeted drug delivery, gene therapy, cancer treatment, DNA analysis, antibacterial agents, enhancing reaction rates, biosensors, magnetic resonance imaging, and separation science. The nanoparticles can be metallic, oxide, sulfide, and other types. The main advantage of biosynthesis of nanomaterial is to decrease energy consumption, hazardous waste production, and greenhouse gas. The microorganisms like bacteria and fungi are the biological agents with promising potential for the biosynthesis of nanoparticles. Fungi have more ability to synthesize ecologically clean metallic nanoparticles. Most of the study reported that fungi are moderately more suitable for large-scale bioproduction of the nanoparticles by producing large amounts of extracellular enzymes. Most of the fungal species Aspergillus fumigates, A. flavus, A. terreus, Fusarium oxysporum, Trichoderma viride, etc., have been studied for intracellular or extracellular nanoparticle synthesis. The fungi-like protein engineering, metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, systems biology, and downstream processing can be used for the production of nanoparticles at the large scale.