Many industries, such as those associated with dyestuffs,
textile, paper and plastics, use dyes in order to colour their
products and also consume substantial volumes of water.
As a result, they generate a considerable amount of
coloured wastewater (Crini 2006) causing a great environmental
concern. Dyes with azo-based chromophores are the
largest group of synthetic dyes known and the most
common group discharged into the environment (Ertugrul
et al. 2008). Azo dyes are considered to be toxic to the
aquatic biota and reported to be carcinogenic to humans.
Therefore, there is a need to remove these dyes before the
effluents are discharged into receiving water bodies. Dye
wastewater is usually treated by physical or chemical
treatment processes. However, these technologies are
usually inefficient in the removal of colour, costly and
little adaptable to a wide range of dye wastewater (Yin and
Dan-Li 2004). In addition, the textile dyeing industries are
facing increasing pressure from the environmentally
concerned organisations to replace the conventional treatment
technologies with environmentally friendly ones. In this
context, the biological methods are receiving more attention
since they are considered to be sustainable and eco-friendly
(Hong et al. 2000). Thus, white-rot fungi have been a subject
of increased research in the last decades due to their ability
to degrade a great variety of organopollutants (Glenn and
Gold 1983; Cripps et al. 1990). This ability is related to the