Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) belong to the most widely used nanoparticles in both commercial products and industrial applications. Hence, they are frequently released into the environment. Soil fungi can affect the mobilization of zinc from ZnO NPs in soils, and thus they can heavily influence the mobility and bioavailability of zinc there. Therefore, ubiquitous soil fungus Aspergillus niger was selected as a test organism to evaluate the fungal interaction with ZnO NPs. As anticipated, the A. niger strain significantly affected the stability of particulate forms of ZnO due to the acidification of its environment. The influence of ZnO NPs on fungus was compared to the aqueous Zn cations and to bulk ZnO as well. Bulk ZnO had the least effect on fungal growth, while the response of A. niger to ZnO NPs was comparable with ionic zinc. Our results have shown that soil fungus can efficiently bioaccumulate Zn that was bioextracted from ZnO. Furthermore, it influences Zn bioavailability to plants by ZnO NPs transformation to stable biogenic minerals. Hence, a newly formed biogenic mineral phase of zinc oxalate was identified after the experiment with A. niger strain's extracellular metabolites highlighting the fungal significance in zinc biogeochemistry.

Department of Mineral Resources and Energy Engineering Jeonbuk National University 567 Baekje daero Deokjin gu Jeonju Jeonbuk 54896 Korea

Department of Soil Science and Geology Faculty of Agrobiology and Food Resources Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra Trieda A Hlinku 2 949 76 Nitra Slovakia

Institute of Electrical Engineering Slovak Academy of Sciences Dúbravská cesta 9 841 04 Bratislava Slovakia

Institute of Laboratory Research on Geomaterials Faculty of Natural Sciences Comenius University in Bratislava Mlynská dolina Ilkovičova 6 842 15 Bratislava Slovakia

Nanotechnology Centre VŠB Technical University of Ostrava 17 listopadu 15 2172 708 33 Ostrava Czech Republic

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