Abstract
Wood rotting-fungi demonstrated to be good candidates for xenobiotic decontamination through biotechnological processes. Among those xenobiotic pollutants, pesticides are known to be toxic, carcinogenic, and persistent in the environment. In the present study, Wood-decay fungi were isolated from wood debris collected from the soil of Khulais (from Northwest of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia). Subsequently, lignin oxidative enzymatic systems, especially, laccases were determined by the test plate method. The purpose was to select those fungal isolates with the highest laccase potential for chlorinated pesticide DDT enzymatic degradation. The best laccase-producing fungal isolate (G3-MZ841818.1) was identified using both microscopic observation and Internal Transcribed spacer ITS sequence identification. Fungal laccase-mediator system extracted and semi-purified from a newly isolated fungus identified as Chaetomium sp. was successfully used for DDT biotransformation. Chromatograms of GC-MS showed a decrease in the intensity of DDT peaks after 2h of Chaetomium sp. laccase treatment compared with the control profile proposing the cleavage of the main compounds DDT.