Degradation of Chloro-organic Pollutants by White Rot Fungi

White rot fungi are attractive as candidates for designing effective bioremediation strategies because of the broad substrate specificity of the ligninolytic enzymes which enable these fungi to degrade or mineralize quite a broad spectrum of chloro?organic and other environmental pollutants. A majority of the bioremediation studies to date were done with P. chrysosporium as the model but a number of other white rot fungi have also been studied in recent years. Basic studies designed to obtain a better understanding of the mechanisms of actions as well as the basic gene structures and proteins of the major extracellular ligninolytic enzymes (LiP, MnP, VP, and laccase) that catalyze degradation of chloro?organics through free?radical?mediated reactions have been described. Recent studies indicate that intracellular enzymes as exemplified by cytochrome P450 monooxygenases are also important in the degradation of a number of the chloroorganic pollutants.