Atlas of Contaminated Sites

Fungus, mould

Cladosporium sphaerospermum Penz.

A melanised mould. It is among the dark fungi associated with the Chernobyl plant, where about 2,000 strains of 200 species have been isolated, and in the laboratory it grows better under ionising radiation when nutrients are scarce. Another strain, isolated from gasworks soil, degrades PAHs in non-sterile soil.

Cladosporium sphaerospermum
Medmyco, CC BY-SA 4.0

How it works

Mechanisms
mycodegradation
Enzymes
laccase

Contaminants

ContaminantEvidenceWhat was shown
Radionuclides (mixed)laboratory

Not a removal figure. Ionising radiation changes the electronic properties of melanin (4-fold higher capacity to reduce NADH) and enhances the growth of melanised C. sphaerospermum under nutrient limitation; melanised cells of Wangiella dermatitidis and Cryptococcus neoformans exposed to about 500 times background grow faster. Hyphae of fungi isolated at Chernobyl grow towards beta and gamma sources, and many of these fungi grow into and decompose hot particles of radioactive graphite.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbonslaboratory

Strain isolated from aged gasworks soil: in non-sterile soils it degraded on average 23% of PAHs in 4 weeks, high-molecular-weight ones included, in proportion to fungal establishment; in liquid culture 18% of benzo[a]pyrene in 4 days. Of the ligninolytic enzymes tested only laccase was detected.

Limits

None of the papers consulted shows this fungus lowering the radioactivity of a soil or material: the data concern growth, tropism and resistance, not decontamination. The idea that melanin harvests energy from radiation is put forward by the authors as a possibility, not an established fact. PAH removal is modest (23%).

Sources

Draft compiled from public sources, not yet reviewed.

Species that the literature reports acting on at least one of this one's contaminants, the closest first.

All plants and fungi