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Meng Wang, PhD
Assistant Professor
Carbon dioxide sequestration has emerged as a crucial action to mitigate the unprecedented challenges of global warming. Carbon mineralization, a process whereby CO2 reacts with mineral cations to form carbonate precipitates, is a permanent way to sequester and store CO2. The biggest limitation of this approach, however, is the slow reaction kinetics of the hydration of aqueous CO2. Carbonic anhydrases form a family of enzymes that are widely used by organisms in accelerating the reaction between CO2 and water. They can bypass the rate-limiting hydration step by catalyzing the direct formation of bicarbonate from aqueous CO2. Our research aims to apply carbonic anhydrases in high salinity environments that contain abundant mineral cations to promoting carbon mineralization and sequestering CO2. Current areas of focus include seawater, saline soil, and manure composts.
709 Benedum Hall | 3700 O’Hara Street | Pittsburgh, PA 15261 P: 412-624-9207
meng.wang@pitt.edu
Protein Compartment-based Nanoreactor for Biosynthesis and Resource Recovery
Engineering microbial metabolism to divert endogenous metabolic processes to designed biosynthetic pathways is a sustainable approach for synthesizing valuable products and recovering resources from wastes. Concentrating key pathway enzymes in confined spaces accelerates the conversion of intermediates and inhibits competing pathways, therefore greatly improving the overall yield of desired products. This mechanism is used by natural microorganisms to promote crucial cell functions (e.g., carbon fixation, iron mineralization, and ammonium oxidation) by forming intracellular compartments that consist of concentrated enzymes and act as subcellular nanoreactors. We are interested in designing and building protein compartmentbased subcellular nanoreactors to enhance microbial efficiencies in biosynthesis and resource recovery. We use genetic engineering and synthetic biology to assemble enzyme cascades in protein compartments through targeting-peptide tagging. We also modify protein compartments to create micro-environments that favor the catalysis of enzymes.
