Biodegradation of pyrene by sediment fungi C. Ravelet, S. Krivobok * , L. Sage, R. Steiman Groupe pour lÕ  Etude du Devenir des X enobiotiques dans lÕEnvironnement (GEDEXE), Laboratoire de Botanique, Cryptogamie, Biologie Cellulaire et G en etique, UFR de Pharmacie de Grenoble, Universit e J. Fourier, BP 138, 38243, Meylan cedex, France Received 11 June 1999; accepted 2 August 1999 Abstract Micromycetes were isolated from PAHS-contaminated sediment and identified. They were investigated for pyrene degradation (10 mg l 1 ) in liquid synthetic medium for two days. Among the 41 strains isolated, 10 highly degraded pyrene (>2.4 mg g 1 dry weight): two Zygomycetes (Mucor racemosus, M. racemosus var. sphaerosporus), 6 Deutero- mycetes (Gliocladium virens, Penicillium simplicissimum, P. janthinellum, Phialophora alba, P. homannii, Trichoderma harzianum), a Dematiaceae (Scopulariopsis brumptii) and a Sphaeropsidale (Coniothyrium fuckelii). Zygomycetes ap- peared as one of the most ecient taxonomic groups, especially with Mucor racemosus. Penicillium crustosum was the only strain that did not degrade pyrene. Among the 10 fungi which were performant for pyrene degradation, nine were not yet reported in the literature and showed a real value for PAH remediation. Ó 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Pyrene; Sediment; Biodegradation; Micromycetes; Fungi 1. Introduction Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a large group of xenobiotic pollutants, occur as common constituents of petroleum, coal tar and shale oil but are mainly formed as by-products of incomplete com- bustion. They are important pollutants found in soil and sediments (IARC, 1983, 1985; Fernandez et al., 1992), and are potential health hazards since several of them have been found mutagenic and carcinogenic (IARC, 1983–1985; Cerniglia et al., 1985; Dipple et al., 1990). Pyrene, a PAH with four fused aromatic rings, has been detected in environmental samples (Grossler et al., 1991; Kucklick et al., 1997) and used as indicator for PAHS-contaminated wastes monitoring (Gschwend and Hites, 1981). Even though pyrene is not genotoxic (Brams et al., 1987; Mersch-Sundermann et al., 1992), its quinone metabolites are mutagenic and more toxic than the parent compound (Okamoto and Yoshida, 1981; Sakai et al., 1985). The structure of pyrene is found in the molecule of carcinogenic PAHs; it has been used as a model compound for measuring binding to DNA (Chen, 1983) and as a model molecule to study the photo- chemical and biological degradations of other PAHs (Takeda et al., 1984; Sack et al., 1997b; 1997c). Bacterial metabolism of pyrene has been extensively studied (Cerniglia et al., 1986; Heitkamp et al., 1988; Boldrin et al., 1993) while few studies with fungi have been published (Sutherland 1992; Cerniglia, 1993; Sack et al., 1997a). Selected white rot fungi such as Phaner- ochaete chrysosporium (Hammel et al., 1986), Pleurotus ostreatus (Bezalel et al., 1996), Crinepellis stipitaria (Lambert et al., 1994; Lange et al., 1994) and Ne- matoloma frowardii (Sack et al., 1997c) have been shown to metabolize pyrene. Chemosphere 40 (2000) 557–563 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +33-04-7604-1000; fax: +33- 04-7604-1005. E-mail address: francoise.seigle-murandi@ujf.grenoble.fr (S. Krivobok). 0045-6535/00/$ - see front matter Ó 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 0 4 5 - 6 5 3 5 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 3 2 0 - 3