Unraveling Mechanisms in Environmental Organic Processes by Mineral and Biological Catalysts
We combine experiments and computation to investigate the mechanisms of natural organic processes, with the goal of innovating the engineering of these processes for natural carbon cycling, waste carbon conversion, and recovery of nutrient resources.
TITLE: A distinct subpopulation of membrane vesicles in Pseudomonas putida is enriched in enzymes for lignin catabolism —ABSTRACT: Bacterial membrane vesicles (MVs) mediate diverse microbial processes and are emerging as powerful biomedical tools, but MV population heterogeneity remains an open
TITLE: Quantitative decoding of coupled carbon and energy metabolism in Pseudomonas putida for lignin carbon utilization —ABSTRACT: Soil Pseudomonas species, which thrive on lignin derivatives, are widely explored for biotechnology applications in lignin valorization. However, how the native metabolism coordinates
TITLE: Mechanisms of water retention at carbohydrate-clay interfaces —ABSTRACT: Clay minerals are well documented to facilitate retention of water and organic matter in terrestrial soils, Martian regolith, and meteorites. Yet, the mechanisms underlying water trapping within these mineral-organic matter associations
TITLE: Engineered membrane vesicle production via oprF or oprI deletion has distinct phenotypic effects in Pseudomonas putida —ABSTRACT: Membrane vesicle (MV) production is a natural phenomenon in Gram-negative bacteria and represents an emerging synthetic biology tool for the secretion of
TITLE: Quantitative benchmarking of the catalytic parameters for enzyme-mimetic ribnucleotide dephosphorylation by iron oxide mineralss —ABSTRACT: Iron oxides, which are documented phosphorus (P) sinks, are shown to catalyze organic P dephosphorylation, implicating these minerals as catalytic traps in P cycling.
TITLE: Mechanisms of polyethylene terephthalate pellet fragmentation into nanoplastics and assimilable carbons by wastewater Comamonas —ABSTRACT: Comamonadacae bacteria are enriched on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) microplastics in wastewaters and urban rivers, but the PET-degrading mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we investigated these
TITLE: Unraveling iron oxides as abiotic catalysts of organic phosphorus recycling in soil and sediment matrices —ABSTRACT: In biogeochemical phosphorus cycling, iron oxide minerals are acknowledged as strong adsorbents of inorganic and organic phosphorus. Dephosphorylation of organic phosphorus is attributed
TITLE: Repression of Microbial Arsenite Uptake and Methylation by Dissolved Organic Carbon —ABSTRACT: Arsenic methylation is the microbe-mediated transformation of inorganic As into methylated species, an important component of the biogeochemical arsenic cycle in rice paddies. Prior to methylation, arsenite
TITLE: Deconstructing synthetic biology across scales: A conceptual approach for training synthetic biologists —ABSTRACT: Synthetic biology allows us to reuse, repurpose, and reconfigure biological systems to address society’s most pressing challenges. Developing biotechnologies in this way requires integrating concepts across