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Ligninolytic Fungi from the Indian Subcontinent and Their Contribution to Enzyme Biotechnology

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Progress in Mycology

Abstract

Lignin is the most abundant polyphenolic aromatic biopolymer on Earth, which is extremely recalcitrant toward biodegradation, owing to its heterogeneous structure and biochemical composition. Extensive research efforts have been made to understand the polymeric structure of lignin in a better way and develop a simple, cost-competitive, and eco-friendly method for its degradation. Over the past few years, wood-rotting fungi, especially white-rot fungi have emerged as a crucial group of microorganism capable of mineralizing lignin biopolymers more efficiently. Such fungi have evolved to produce a unique set of extracellular oxidative enzymes in different combinations. Further, they also produce enzymes in multiple isoforms and isozymes that catalyze ligninolysis using radical mediated oxidative reactions. The major ligninolytic enzymes include laccase, manganese peroxidase, lignin peroxidase, and versatile peroxidase. The ligninolytic activities of these enzymes can be enhanced by various natural and/or chemical redox mediators as well as some other auxiliary enzymes (aryl-alcohol oxidase, glyoxal oxidase, quinone reductases, aryl-alcohol dehydrogenases, and feruloyl esterase) to facilitate lignin degradation process. These enzymes have attracted attention of several researchers due to their broad substrate specificity, which make them readily available for numerous biotechnological and industrial applications including paper and pulp industry, food-feed and beverage industry, biofuel industry, bioremediation of hazardous pollutants, and degradation of toxic textile dye effluents. In this chapter, we appraise different ligninolytic fungi from Indian subcontinent and the research findings by native microbiologists and biotechnologists on the fungal enzymatic systems. Finally, the biotechnological and industrial applications of ligninolytic fungi and their enzyme arsenals are also discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the infrastructure facilities provided by Maharshi Dayanand University. KKS also acknowledges FIST-DST New Delhi, India (Grant No. 1196 SR/FST/LS-I/2017/4), for the financial support to the Department of Microbiology. S.S. is grateful to the University Research Scholarship (URS), Maharshi Dayanand University for the financial assistance.

Conflict of interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest.

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Correspondence to Krishna Kant Sharma .

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Saini, S., Sharma, K.K. (2021). Ligninolytic Fungi from the Indian Subcontinent and Their Contribution to Enzyme Biotechnology. In: Satyanarayana, T., Deshmukh, S.K., Deshpande, M.V. (eds) Progress in Mycology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3307-2_6

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