Evaluation of Metal Tolerance of Fungal Strains Isolated from Contaminated Mining Soil of Nanjing, China
Fiza Liaquat,
Muhammad Farooq Hussain Munis,
Urooj Haroon,
Samiah Arif,
Saddam Saqib,
Wajid Zaman,
Ali Raza Khan,
Jianxin Shi,
Shengquan Che,
Qunlu Liu
Affiliations
Fiza Liaquat
School of Agriculture and Biology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Muhammad Farooq Hussain Munis
Department of Plant Sciences, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
Urooj Haroon
Department of Plant Sciences, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
Samiah Arif
School of Agriculture and Biology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Saddam Saqib
State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China
Wajid Zaman
State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China
Ali Raza Khan
Zhejiang Key Lab of Crop Germplasm, Department of Agronomy, College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Jianxin Shi
Joint International Research Laboratory of Metabolic and Developmental Sciences, School of Life Science and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Shengquan Che
Department of Landscape Architecture, School of Design, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Qunlu Liu
Department of Landscape Architecture, School of Design, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Rapidly increasing industry has resulted in greater discharge of hazardous chemicals in the soil. In the current study, soil samples were collected from Nanjing mine (32°09′19.29″ N 118°56′57.04″ E) and subjected to heavy metal analysis and microbe isolation. A total of 460 fungi were isolated, and five of these were yeast strains. Most of the strains exhibited tolerance to one metal. Five multimetal tolerant strains were selected and identified as Aspergillus sclerotiorum, Aspergillus aculeatus, Komagataella phaffii, Trichoderma harzianum, and Aspergillus niger. Isolated strains were grown in high concentrations of cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr) and lead (Pb), for induced-tolerance training. The tolerance index (TI) revealed the highest Cd tolerance of novel K. phaffii strain at 5500 ppm (TI: 0.2). K. phaffii also displayed resistance at 4000 ppm against Cr (TI: 0.32) and Pb (TI: 0.32). In contrast, tolerance training for A. niger was not that successful. K. phaffii also displayed the highest bioaccumulation capacity for Cd (25.23 mg/g), Cu (21.63 mg/g), and Pb (20.63 mg/g) at 200 ppm. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) explored the morphological changes in the mycelia of stressed fungi. Results of this study describe this delicate approach to be species and metal dependent and suggest a potential utilization of this fungal strain for the bioremediation of contaminated soils.
