Publications

High Throughput expression and characterization of laccases in Saccharomyces cerevisiae [Poster]

Wolski, Paul W.; Lopes, Alberto L.; Deng, Kai; Simmons, Blake A.; Mukhopadhyay, Aindrila M.; Singer, Steven W.; Sale, Kenneth L.

We are working to generate fundamental understanding of enzymatic depolymerization of lignin and using this understanding to engineer mixtures of enzymes that catalyze the reactions necessary to efficiently depolymerize lignin into defined fragments. Over the years the enzymes involved in these processes have been difficult to study, because 1) the enzymes thought to be most important, fungal laccases and peroxidases, are very difficult to express in soluble, active form; 2) the full complement of required enzymes and whether or not they act synergistically is not known; 3) analysis of bond cleavage events is difficult due to the lack of analytical tools for measuring bond cleavage events in either polymeric lignin or model lignin-like compounds.