Speaker
Description
Introduction: Pharmaceutical effluents disposal has become problematic due to poor waste management in the pharmaceutical industry. These effluents eventually cause pollution of the water bodies which endangers human and aquatic lives. However, the effluents which are usually composed of phenolic compounds that are degraded by oxidative enzymes (laccase, lignin and manganese peroxidases) that are expressed in edible mushrooms like Pleurotus spp. On the other hand, most agricultural residues such as lignocellulosics serve as suitable substrates for cultivation of edible oyster mushrooms like P. ostreatus.
Objective: The study addressed this pollution challenge by producing oxidative enzymes from some agricultural residues such as saw dust (SD), corn cob (CC) and coconut fibre (CF) for the cultivation of oyster mushroom, P. ostreatus.
Methodology: The agricultural residues were composted for two weeks and used as substrates for the mushroom cultivation. The fruiting bodies obtained from the mushrooms were homogenized and the crude extracts purified and assayed for the oxidative enzymes like laccase (Lac), lignin peroxidase (LiP) and manganese peroxidase (MnP)
Results: The oxidative enzymes showed various levels of activities from the various agricultural residues. Lignin peroxidase activity was relatively consistent across the three substrates with slight variations. SD showed the lowest LiP activity (26.75 ± 1.47 U/L), with CF (30.40 ± 5.00 U/L) and CC (30.87 ± 3.49) showing slightly higher comparable activities. MnP activity was much higher than LiP activity across all substrates. Laccase showed the lowest activity compared to LiP and MnP.
Conclusion: The results obtained from the study showed the suitability of producing oxidative enzymes from agricultural residues with remediation potential to reduce pollution of pharmaceutical effluents.
Keywords: Bioremediation, oxidative enzymes, oyster mushrooms, lignocellulose, pollution