Synthetic chemicals including organochlorine pesticides pose environment and health hazard due to persistent and bio-accumulation property. Majority of them are recognized as endocrine disruptors. Fungi are ubiquitous in nature and employs efficient enzymatic machinery for the biotransformation and degradation of toxic, recalcitrant pollutants. This review critically discusses the organochlorine biotransformation process mediated by fungi and highlights the role of enzymatic system responsible for biotransformation, especially distribution of dehalogenase homologs among fungal classes. It also explores the potential use of fungal derived biomaterial, mainly chitosan as an adsorbing biomaterial for pesticides and heavy metals removal. Further, prospects of employing fungus to over-come the existing bioremediation limitations are discussed. The study highlights the potential scope of utilizing fungi for initial biotransformation purposes, preceding final biodegradation by bacterial species under environmental conditions.
Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12088-021-00940-8.
Keywords: Chitin; Chlorinated pesticide; Cytochrome P450 monooxygenase; Dehalogenase; Immobilization; In-situ degradation.
© Association of Microbiologists of India 2021.