Plastic yearly production has surpassed the 300milliontons mark and recycling has all but failed in constituting a viable solution for the disposal of plastic waste. As these materials continue to accumulate in the environment, namely, in rivers and oceans, in the form of macro-, meso-, micro- and nanoplastics, it becomes of the utmost urgency to find new ways to curtail this environmental threat. Multiple efforts have been made to identify and isolate microorganisms capable of utilizing synthetic polymers and recent results point towards the viability of a solution for this problem based on the biodegradation of plastics resorting to selected microbial strains. Herein, the response of the fungus Zalerion maritimum to different times of exposition to polyethylene (PE) pellets, in a minimum growth medium, was evaluated, based on the quantified mass differences in both the fungus and the microplastic pellets used. Additionally, molecular changes were assessed through attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). Results showed that, under the tested conditions, Z. maritimum is capable of utilizing PE, resulting in the decrease, in both mass and size, of the pellets. These results indicate that this naturally occurring fungus may actively contribute to the biodegradation of microplastics, requiring minimum nutrients.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.02.017 | DOI Listing |
Sci Total Environ
December 2023
Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM) and Department of Chemistry, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.
Disposable facemasks represent a new form of environmental contamination worldwide. This study aimed at addressing the abundance of facemasks in an overlooked natural environment with high ecological and economic value - the wetlands (Ria de Aveiro, Portugal, as study case), evaluating their potential biodegradation using naturally occurring fungi and assessing the potential ecotoxicity of released microfibres on local bivalves. All masks collected within 6500 m area of Aveiro wetland were 100 % disposable ones (PP-based, confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy - FTIR) with an initial abundance of 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMar Drugs
March 2023
ECOMARE-Laboratory for Innovation and Sustainability of Marine Biological Resources, CESAM-Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies, Department of Chemistry, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.
Marine environments occupy more than 70% of the earth's surface, integrating very diverse habitats with specific characteristics. This heterogeneity of environments is reflected in the biochemical composition of the organisms that inhabit them. Marine organisms are a source of bioactive compounds, being increasingly studied due to their health-beneficial properties, such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, or anticancer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicrobiol Resour Announc
April 2023
Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM), University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
Zalerion maritima is a marine fungus that has been studied for the biodegradation of (micro)plastics. Here, we report the draft genome sequence of strain ATCC 34329, which was shown to have a size of 58.4 Mb, a GC content of 44.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMycologia
October 2021
Centro de Estudos do Ambiente e do Mar (CESAM), Departamento de Biologia, Universidade de Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.
Mycologia
October 2018
a Centro de Estudos do Ambiente e do Mar (CESAM), Faculdade de Ciências , Universidade de Lisboa , Campo Grande , 1749-016 Lisboa , Portugal.
This study presents morphological and molecular evidence for the establishment of a new species of Lulworthia based on the evaluation of 11 isolates of Lulworthiales collected in two marinas on the west coast of Portugal initially classified as Lulworthia sp. Maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods were applied to obtain phylogenetic trees for 18S-28S and internal transcribed spacer (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 = internal transcribed spacer [ITS]) nuc rDNA.
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