Jennifer Nill

University of California, Davis | UCD · Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

Synchrotron infrared hyperspectral microscopy is a label-free and non-invasive technique well suited for imaging of chemical events in situ. It can track the spatial and temporal distributions of molecules of interests in a specimen in its native state by the molecule's characteristic vibrational modes. Despite tremendous progress made in recent ye...

Interfacial enzyme reactions require formation of an enzyme-substrate complex at the surface of a heterogeneous substrate, but often multiple modes of enzyme binding and types of binding sites complicate analysis of their kinetics. Excess of heterogeneous substrate is often used as a justification to model the substrate as unchanging; but using the...

Background: Molecular-scale mechanisms of the enzymatic breakdown of cellulosic biomass into fermentable sugars are still poorly understood, with a need for independent measurements of enzyme kinetic parameters. We measured binding times of cellobiohydrolase Trichoderma reesei Cel7A (Cel7A) on celluloses using wild-type Cel7A (WTintact), the catal...

Interfacial enzyme reactions require formation of an enzyme-substrate complex at the surface of a heterogeneous substrate, but often multiple modes of enzyme binding and types of binding sites complicate analysis of their kinetics. Excess of heterogeneous substrate is often used as a justification to model the substrate as unchanging; but using the...

Mechanistic kinetic models are vital tools to elucidate rate-limiting interactions and processes hampering complete hydrolysis of cellulose by cellulases. Properly formulated, the models should ultimately simulate experimental cellulose hydrolysis time courses given that model parameters are known a priori. Here, we review reported values of critic...

Bioconversion of lignocellulose forms the basis for renewable, advanced biofuels and bioproducts. Mechanisms of hydrolysis of cellulose by cellulases have been actively studied for nearly 70 years with significant gains in understanding of the cellulolytic enzymes. Yet, a full mechanistic understanding of the hydrolysis reaction has been elusive. W...

Alkaline pretreatment using sodium hydroxide offers a means to extract lignin and acetate from lignocellulosic biomass, in turn enabling higher enzymatic digestibility of the remaining polysaccharides and production of a lignin-enriched stream for potential valorization. Key criteria for alkaline pretreatment processes, which are important for comm...

Enzymatic depolymerization of polysaccharides is often a key step in the production of fuels and chemicals from lignocellulosic biomass. Historically, model cellulose from model substrates to realistic biomass substrates is criticalsubstrates have been utilized to reveal insights into enzymatic saccharification mechanisms. However, translating find...