Mycoremediation of environmental pollutants: a review with special emphasis on mushrooms

Three decades ago, when the historic earth summit commenced at Rio de Janeiro, Nation-states sought to find ways to stop polluting the planet, however, the problem of pollution not only persisted but also aggravated day by day. Pollution thus, has become a universal challenge that is inducing climate change, threatening biodiversity and taking a toll on millions of lives every year. Among many pollutants, a significant proportion is contributed by many malicious and hazardous compounds such as heavy metals, xenobiotics, pesticides, hydrocarbons, and dyes which are being remitted through industries. Various chemical and physical processes as well as state of art technologies are being utilized to tackle this issue though they are not effective to the desired extent. However, what has been so difficult for men has been carried out by fungi for ages via mycoremediation—an aspect of bioremediation that utilizes fungi to remove toxic pollutants sustainably. One group of such fungus belonging to Basidiomycota are mushrooms used in haute cuisine worldwide due to their richness in flavor and nutrients but their enzymatic and non-enzymatic machinery aid in the field of remediation of pollutants. Mushroom serves as a better decomposer since mushroom fruiting body, mycelium, and its extracellular enzymes obliterate hazardous pollutants through different methods. This review emphasizes the mechanism of mycoremediation used by mushrooms such as bioaccumulation, biosorption, and bioconversion, and also discusses the role of different environmental factors affecting mycoremediation.Graphic abstract