# Mycoremediation as a Potentially Promising Technology: Current Status and Prospects--A Review
###### Abstract  
Global environmental pollutants are becoming intense because of the increasing human population, urbanisation, and industrialisation. Human health and the ecosystem are affected by soil and water contamination. Therefore, creating strategies is essential to tackle this persistent issue. In the process, the health and environmental risk associated with these pollutants can be significantly reduced. Previously, traditional remediation techniques have been employed in combating these environmental pollutants, proving ineffective. Mycoremediation, which uses fungi or their compounds to remediate environmental pollutants, has shown to be a cost-efficient, environment-tally friendly, and effective method of environmental remediation that includes organic, inorganic, and emerging contaminants (antibiotics, pharmaceuticals). This review provides an overview of various mycoremediation approaches through fungi for biosorption, precipitation, biotransfor-mation, and sequestration of environmental pollutants. In addition, the removal of metals, persis-tent organic pollutants, and other emerging contaminants by mycoremediation was highlighted. For example, fungi such as Pleurotusdryinus, Trameteshirsuta MK640786, and Aspergillus bilitsumiger shows 91%, 94%, and 98.4% degradation of pollutants ranging from pesticides to azo dyes, respectively. Furthermore, prospects of mycoremediation to remove heavy metals and emerging pollutants from waters and soils were discussed. It was elucidated that fungi have great potential for the mycoremediation of emerging pollutants such as heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), pesticides, and weedicides. The findings suggested a knowledge gap exists to enhance the rate of the mycoremediation process. Therefore, a possible framework of mycoremediation was proposed to facilitate this promising technology for rectifying global environmental problems. For mycoremediation procedures to be as effective as possible, further studies are needed on fungal enzymes' role, activities, and regulation. Remediation; mycoremediation; fungi; environment; pollutants; heavy metals +
Footnote †: journal: Applied Sciences
serious problems, especially when the biodegradation capacity of the natural microbiome is insufficient to remove or neutralise the pollutants. The physiology of cells, the composition of microbial cell walls, and physicochemical parameters, including temperature, pH, metal concentration, ionic strength, and time all play a role in the complex process of microbial metal remediation [1]. Metals, unlike organic contaminants, are not naturally destroyed, so their retention duration in the soil is measured in thousands of years. They undergo oxidation changes or complex organic transformations and remain in the soil [2]. Microorganisms can remove metals from aqueous solutions. The term for this phenomenon is biosorption. In recent research, mycosorption is defined as the biosorption of fungi [3]. Mycosorption results from the attraction of functional groups on the fungal cell wall and dyes, which occurs through a physical or chemical process and depends on the fungal biomass [4]. Mycosorption is a subject of significant interest to scientists all around the world [5]. Fungi have the ecological and biochemical ability to break down organic compounds in the environment and reduce the risk of radionuclides, metalloids, and metals through chemical modification or by affecting chemical bioavailability. In addition, these fungi are ideal for bioremediation due to their ability to form large mycelial networks; their catabolic enzymes are not highly selective, and they do not depend on pollutants as a growth substrate [6]. Most fungi can break down numerous pollutants due to their ability to synthesize extracellular enzymes to digest complex carbohydrates without prior hydrolysis [7]. Mycoremediation is a bioremediation subset that employs fungi to degrade, re-store, and heal contaminated ecosystems [8; 9; 10].