Author(s)

José Luis Hernández-Flores¹, José Gerardo Bernal Melo², Andrés Cruz Hernández³, Miguel A. Ramos López², Carlos Saldaña Gutiérrez⁴, Sergio Romero Gomez², Victor Pérez Moreno², Rosa P. Calvillo Medina², José Humberto Valenzuela Soto⁵, Sergio Pacheco Hernández², George H. Jones⁶, Sergio Casas Flores^7*, Juan Campos-Guillen²

¹Laboratorio de Bioseguridad y Análisis de Riesgo, Departamento de Ingeniería Genética de Plantas, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN, Irapuato, Gto. México.
²Facultad de Química, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Cerro de las Campanas s/n, Querétaro, Qro., México.
³Escuela de Agronomía, Universidad De La Salle Bajío, campus Campestre. León, Gto. México.
⁴Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Av. De las Ciencias S/N, Querétaro, Qro., México.
⁵Centro de Investigación en Química Aplicada, Blvd. Enrique Reyna Hermosillo No.140, Saltillo, Coahuila, México.
⁶Department of Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
⁷IPICYT, División de Biología Molecular. Camino a la presa San José No. 2055, Colonia Lomas 4a sección. C.P. San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

Traditional mining activities are usually correlated with high levels of soil pollution, which is a major environmental concern. Extensive mining activities have taken place in the San Joaquin region in the State of Querétaro, México resulting in high levels of mercury soil pollution (up to 1532 ± 300 mg/kg). We isolated mercury-resistant fungal strains from the San Joaquin region soils and identified them through morphologic characteristics and ITS rDNA region sequence analysis. We determined that fungi isolated belong to the genus Trichoderma. All the isolates selected showed the ability to catalyze the volatilization of Hg. For air sampling, an active sampling device was constructed and using acid KMnO4 as an absorbent, the concentration of mercury in solution was determined through the cold vapor atomic absorption method. The results show mercury volatilization from the fungal species assay, with a maximum of 213.04 ± 32.6 μg/m3 while mycelium accumulation ranged from less than 17.5 ± 2.9 to 20.0 ± 3.4 μg/g. The fungal isolates were also evaluated for their ability to reduce mercury uptake in Arabidopsis thaliana. These observations suggest the utility of Trichoderma for the mobilization of mercury in those contaminated soils.

Volatilization, Mercury, Trichoderma , Soil Bioremediation

Hernández-Flores, J. , Melo, J.L. , Hernández, A. , López, M. , Gutiérrez, C. , Gomez, S. , Moreno, V. , Medina, R. , Soto, J. , Hernández, S. , Jones, G. , Flores, S. and Campos-Guillen, J. (2018) Isolation and Characterization of Mercury Resistant Trichoderma Strains from Soil with High Levels of Mercury and Its Effects on Arabidopsis thaliana Mercury Uptake. Advances in Microbiology, 8, 600-613. doi: 10.4236/aim.2018.87040.