Biodegradation of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons using the filamentous fungus Penicillium sp. CHY-2 and characterization of its manganese peroxidase activity

The aim of this work was to study the potential of the non-lignolytic filamentous fungus Penicillium sp. CHY-2, isolated from Antarctic soil, for the biodegradation of eight different aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons such as octane, decane, dodecane, ethylbenzene, butylbenzene, naphthalene, acenaphthene, and benzo[a]pyrene. Among all the compounds, CHY-2 showed the highest level of degradation for decane (49.0%), followed by butylbenzene (42.0%) and dodecane (33.0%), and lower levels of degradation for naphthalene (15.0%), acenaphthene (10.0%), octane (8.0%), ethylbenzene (4.0%), and benzo[a]pyrene (2.0%) at 20 °C. The addition of carbon sources such as glucose (5 g L−1) and Tween-80 (5 g L−1) enhanced decane degradation by about 1.8-fold and 1.61-fold respectively at 20 °C. The metabolites produced during the degradation of decane were identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Furthermore, the enzyme manganese peroxidase (MnP) from CHY-2 was purified. MnP was found to consist of monomers with a molecular mass of 36 kDa. The purified MnP had an optimum pH of 5.0 and temperature of 30 °C. The Km and Vmax values of MnP towards Mn2+ were 1.31 μM and 185.19 μM min−1 respectively. These results indicated that the strain CHY-2 can be used for the degradation of hydrocarbons and could have promising applications in treatment of hydrocarbon contaminated sites