You may recall from high school biology that fungi is one of the five kingdoms in the classification of living things and includes yeasts, molds, and mushroom-producing macrofungi. Fungi grow everywhere: there’s a fungus among us!
Fun fact: fungi are genetically more related to animals than plants. They can’t make their own food like plants do (through photosynthesis), so they must absorb nutrients through a host. They can’t move, so they reproduce by giving off spores. Some fungi, better known as mushrooms, are delicious to eat, and some are used in the fermentation of beer and wine. Fungi live happily on their own in soil or water while others have symbiotic or parasitic relationships with animals and plants. Their application to human use is both well known and developing but shows great promise in everything from healthcare to oil spills.
Did you know antibiotics are produced from fungi and bacteria found in soil? The next time a loved one gets strep throat, you may thank the penicillium fungi for penicillin treatment. Cyclosporine, derived from soil fungus, is a drug used to suppress the body’s immune system from rejecting an organ transplant. It is estimated that there are over 5 million fungal species, but we are just beginning to scrape the surface in our understanding of how beneficial they may be.
To absorb nutrients through their cell walls, fungi secrete enzymes to break down carbohydrates and proteins, thereby playing an essential role on earth as decomposers of dead organic matter. Amazingly, scientists have discovered that certain varieties of fungi have the ability to degrade plastic! A group of scientists led by Sehroon Khan, from the Kunming Institute of Botany at the Chinese Academy of Science, collected fungus from a garbage dump in Islamabad, Pakistan. It turns out that a previously undiscovered strain of fungus, Aspergillus tubingensis, has the incredible superpower of secreting enzymes and using its mycelia (“roots”) to break down the chemical bonds of polyurethane, a plastic used in both flexible and rigid applications such as refrigerator insulation, mattresses, furniture cushioning, car parts, and more.
Needless to say, the incredible ability of this fungus to chomp down plastic has important ramifications for managing plastic waste. Plastics pose a huge threat to the environment and are bad for water, soil, vegetation, and humans. Once plastic is made, it can never be destroyed. Since the 1950s, approximately 8.3 billion tons of plastic have been produced and still exist in some form or another. Disposal of plastic is difficult, as methods such as melting or burning creates toxic byproducts that are hazardous to human health. With only one-fifth of plastic recycled, we are continually exploring creative solutions to reduce plastic garbage. Khan’s team is very excited by the discovery of plastic biodegradation using both fungi and bacteria, and they are developing ways to make it work on a large scale.
A Nod to Bacteria Biodegradation:
There’s another miracle worker on the living organism chart: bacteria. Remember the disastrous oil spill in 2010 caused by an explosion on BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico? Several strains of non-pathogenic marine bacteria bloomed in the polluted waters and feasted on the crude oil and gas spill. The oil industry is trying to figure out how to keep this tiny, eco-friendly miracle worker in stock so they can deploy it as needed to decontaminate polluted land and water during catastrophic oil spills, especially in inaccessible areas.
Back to fungi, here is an excerpt from an article on applications of the miracle mushroom:
“Mushrooms to the Rescue," Discover Magazine, July/August 2013 issue
Crusading mycologist Paul Stamets has researched a wide variety of ways in which fungi could help solve human problems. Here is a partial list:
Environmental cleanup Mushrooms could be used to break down petrochemicals or absorb radiation from contaminated soil and water.
Wastewater filtration Mushroom mycelia could cleanse runoff from storm drains, farms, or logging roads. They could be used to filter out the nitrates, endocrine disrupters and pharmaceutical residues that disrupt ecosystems and damage human health.
Pesticides Fungal bug-killers could be used to target troublesome species while remaining nontoxic to others.
Medicines Mushrooms could provide new antibiotic, antiviral and immune-boosting compounds and even chemotherapies.
Forestry Planting symbiotic mushroom species could speed reforestation in clear-cut woodlands.
Agriculture Adding mycorrhizal fungi to soil could improve crop yields without the need for toxic chemical fertilizers.
Famine relief Mushrooms could be grown rapidly in refugee camps and disaster zones, using just wood chips or saltwater-soaked straw.
Biofuels Growing mushrooms for biodiesel could require far less soil and other resources than commonly cultivated fuel crops.
Space travel Because of their usefulness in soil creation, and the tolerance of many species for radiation, mushrooms could be grown by interstellar voyagers and use to terraform other worlds.
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