Fungal Attack on Environmental Pollutants Representing Poor Microbial Growth Substrates

Abstract

Microbial growth on the basis of the oxidation of organic environmental pollutants is commonly hampered if these (1) are only poorly water-soluble or practically insoluble in water (e.g. solid synthetic polymers like plastics, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), (2) occur only in trace concentrations (e.g. the so-called micropollutants), or (3) are already highly oxidised, thus providing only little energy to potential degrader organisms (e.g. certain highly chlorinated organic compounds). Cometabolism, which is prominent in fungi, enables to attack environmental pollutants without the need for utilising them as growth substrates. This chapter presents and discusses fungal cometabolic and productive degradation capabilities with regard to the biocatalytic breakdown of different environmental pollutant groups, which share the common characteristic of representing only poor substrates for microbial growth, from a biochemical, eco-physiological, evolutionary, and biotechnological perspective.