Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural Sciences http://www.jebas.org ISSN No. 2320 – 8694 Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural Sciences, December - 2019; Volume – 7(6) page 579 – 586 A HIGHLY HEAVY METAL TOLERANT Fusarium solani WITH EFFICIENT BIOACCUMULATION POTENTIALITY FROM CONTAMINATED SOIL Pravash Mondal, Bejoysekhar Datta, Sujata Chaudhuri * Mycology and Plant Pathology Laboratory, Department of Botany, University of Kalyani, Kalyani, West Bengal, India. Received – September 30, 2019; Revision – November 16, 2019; Accepted –December 12, 2019 Available Online – December 25, 2019 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18006/2019.7(6).579.586 ABSTRACT Bioremediation of toxic metal contaminated soil and wastewater by filamentous soil fungi is a promising approach. In the present study, tolerance and bioaccumulation ability of Fusarium solani were tested for four heavy metals viz. cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), nickel (Ni) and chromium (Cr).The fungus, isolated from textile-dye contaminated soil, was cultured on potato dextrose agar (PDA) and potato dextrose broth (PDB) supplemented with different metals to investigate metal tolerance and removal efficiency respectively. After 10 days of fungal growth in metal containing PDB, the remaining metal amount was evaluated by atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS).Minimum inhibitory concentrations of heavy metals up to which the isolate could grow were 2100, 3600, 2700 and 3900 ppm for Cd, Pb, Ni and Cr respectively. The highest tolerance index was recorded against Cr (1.07), followed by Pb (1.02), Ni (0.77) and Cd (0.66). Up to certain concentration, both Cr and Pb showed stimulatory effect on the growth of the isolate. Maximum bioaccumulation was observed for Cr (86.5%) followed by Pb (85.5%)> Ni (75.3%)> Cd (68.6%). The fungal isolate showed maximum growth, tolerance and bioaccumulation at pH 6 and 28 ᵒ C temperature. FTIR spectra of dried biomass grown with or without heavy metals showed stretching vibration at 4000 – 400 cm -1 which revealed the interaction between heavy metals and functional groups of biomass. Thus, it can be concluded that this fungal isolate has a potential of being a suitable for efficient heavy metal bioaccumulation and bioremediation of polluted soil and waste water. * Corresponding author KEYWORDS Fusarium solani Heavy metals Tolerance index Bioaccumulation Bioremediation E-mail: sujatachaudhuri@gmail.com (Sujata Chaudhuri) Peer review under responsibility of Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural Sciences. All the articles published by Journal of Experimental Biology and Agricultural Sciences are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License Based on a work at www.jebas.org. Production and Hosting by Horizon Publisher India [HPI] (http://www.horizonpublisherindia.in/). All rights reserved.