Micorremediación de metales pesados de plomo, cromo y cadmio mediante la respuesta de crecimiento en condiciones In vitro

Abstract

Heavy metals are found in low concentrations, but due to the increase in anthropogenic activities, this is becoming a major problem today. The objective of this research was to identify and evaluate the mycoremediation capacity of a strain of filamentous microfungus, focusing on the dynamics of fungal growth and interaction with the heavy metals lead, chromium and cadmium under controlled laboratory conditions. First, the preparation of the solid and liquid medium for the inoculation of the fungus was carried out. Subsequently, growth control was carried out in the solid medium through measurements, while in the liquid medium the mycelium was collected from the vials for sample processing. Next, through an equation of percentage inhibition and tolerance index, the fungal activity in response to heavy metals was recorded. Also, DNA extraction, conventional PCR amplification, purification and sequencing were carried out for the characterization of the filamentous microfungus by making the phylogenetic tree. The performance of this study supports that the filamentous microfungus is a potential bioremediator for soils contaminated with chromium, since it indicates a high tolerance index and a 0% inhibition for solid media contaminated with this metal, exhibiting an unusual growth dynamic compared to the control and other treatments. It also shows a slight tolerance to media contaminated with lead with an inhibition percentage between 21% and 38% and finally, due to the presence of cadmium, growth was inhibited by 100%.