Shen-Long Tsai

National Taiwan University of Science and Technology · Department of Chemical Engineering

Background: Rising carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from industries like petrochemicals and power generation necessitate direct air carbon capture, emphasizing the importance of effective adsorption carriers. This study focuses on a cylindrical NaY zeolite carrier modified with polyethyleneimine (PEI) for this purpose. Methods: To understand engine...

Background: The development of effective carbon dioxide adsorbents is becoming increasingly important as global warming becomes a more serious issue. In this work, a cylindrical NaY zeolite modified with polyethyleneimine (PEI) was used to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) at ambient conditions in packed beds. Methods: A simulation system indoors was e...

The utilization of ceramides, which are members of the sphingolipid family, has been widely acknowledged in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries, along with various other applications as therapeutic agents. Most ceramides currently available on the market are synthetic ceramides created through chemical reactions with precursors resembling th...

Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) are miniature versions of gram-negative bacteria that contain almost the same content as their parent cells, particularly in terms of membrane composition. Using OMVs as biocatalysts is a promising approach due to their potential benefits, including their ability to be handled similarly to bacteria while lacking poten...

The primary obstacle impeding the more widespread use of biomass for energy and chemical production is the absence of a low-cost technology for overcoming their recalcitrant nature. It has been shown that the overall cost can be reduced by using a ‘consolidated’ bioprocessing (CBP) approach, in which enzyme production, biomass hydrolysis, and sugar...

Proteins are not designed to be standalone entities and must coordinate their collective action for optimum performance. Nature has developed through evolution the ability to co-localize the functional partners of a cascade enzymatic reaction in order to ensure efficient exchange of intermediates. Inspired by these natural designs, synthetic scaffo...

The disposal of wastewater containing tetramethylammonium chloride (TMAC) generated from the semiconductor and photoelectric industries is a challenging problem due to the limited information is available regarding its treatability. This study aims to investigate the feasibility of using biological processes to treat TMAC. An activated sludge colle...

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) becomes one of the most well-known polyesters and is widely used as packaging material. Recently, polyethylene terephthalate hydrolase (PETase) has emerged as a potential biocatalyst demonstrating the ability to degrade polyethylene terephthalate (PET). We showed that the rate of PETase hydrolysis could be significa...

A biotrickling filter (BTF) was combined with a microbial fuel cell (MFC) to remove ethyl acetate from exhaust gas while generating electricity in the process. The results indicated that the use of carbide porous ceramic rings (CPCR) as auxiliary anodes produced more biomass and exhibited a high average removal efficiency (98%), making it a superio...

Poly(ethylene terephthalate) hydrolase (PETase) from Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6 was expressed and purified from Escherichia coli to hydrolyze poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) fibers waste for its monomers recycling. Hydrolysis carried out at pH 8 and 30 °C was found to be the optimal condition based on measured monomer mono(2-hydroxyethyl) terep...

Electrospinning technology was applied for the preparation of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofiber membrane in this work. After hot pressing, alkaline hydrolysis and neutralization treatment, a weak acid cation exchange membrane (P-COOH) was prepared. By the covalent coupling reaction between the acidic membrane and aminomethane sulfonic acid (AMSA),...

Water pollution caused by dyes has been a serious problem affecting human health and environment. The surface of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofiber membranes was modified by mild hydrolysis and coupled with bovine serum albumin (BSA) obtained from the laboratory wastes, resulting in the synthesis of P-COOH and P-COOH-BSA nanofibers. The nanofibers w...

1,3-Propanediol (1,3-PDO) has numerous industrial applications in the synthesis of the monomer of the widely used fiber polytrimethylene terephthalate. In this work, the production of 1,3-PDO by Klebsiella pneumoniae is increased by dual-substrate cultivation and fed-batch fermentation. Experimental results indicate that the production of 1,3-PDO c...

Yarrowia lipolytica is a well-known oleaginous yeast that naturally accumulates lipids to more than 20% of their dry cell weight. Due to its brief doubling time and Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) properties, Y. lipolytica has been exploited for the production of commercially valuable lipids. Among the genes related to the lipid synthesis, the...

FDCA (2,5-furandicarboxylic acid) can be enzymatically converted from HMF (5-hydroxymethylfurfural). Pseudomonas putida S12 is promising for FDCA production, but generating stable P. putida S12 is difficult due to its polyploidy and lack of genome engineering tools. Here we showed that coupling CRISPR and λ-Red recombineering enabled one-step gene...

Transforming petrochemical processes into bioprocesses has become an important goal of sustainable development. The chemical synthesis of 2,5‐furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) from 5‐hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is expensive and environmentally unfavourable. The study aims to investigate a whole‐cell biocatalyst for efficient biotransformation of HMF to...

2,5‐furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) is one of the top platform chemicals that can be produced from biomass feedstock. To make the cost of industrial FDCA production compatible with plastics made from fossils, the price of substrates and process complexity should be reduced. The aim of this research was to create a CO2‐driven syntrophic consortium for...

This work presents a white rot fungus-microbial fuel cell (WRF-MFC) that uses WRF that is grown at its cathode. Adding Cu2+ to the fungi-containing solid medium stimulated WRF-secreting laccase, which catalyzed the redox reaction in the MFC and thereby promoting the generation of electricity. Adding 12.5 mg L-1 Cu2+ to a G. lucidum-containing mediu...

5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is a versatile biomass-derived chemical for synthesizing useful compounds. In this work an attempt is made to produce HMF by developing a low-cost process for doing that using cellulosic waste and deep eutectic solvents (DESs). The most effective DES was choline chloride/citric acid (ChCl/citric acid, 2/1), which provi...

We here reported the 1H/13C chemical shifts, binding affinity and binding free energy of 1,4-pregnadiene-11β,17α,21-triol-3,20-dione (Prednisolone; Prd) interacting with metal cations. Six different Prd/Ni or Co mixtures were examined at different molar ratios (1:0, 1:0.1, 1:0.2, 1:0.3, 1:0.4 and 1:0.5). In this analysis, the 1H and 13C chemical sh...

Toluene and Trichloroethylene (TCE) are two of the most common organic contaminates at hazardous sites and contaminated water. In this study, a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) inoculated with PVA/alginate-immobilized Pseudomonas putida F1 was used for biological treatment of toluene and TCE contaminated wastewater. Moreover, a mathematical model was...

The effectiveness of a series-connected biotrickling filter (SC-BTF) system in treating toluene vapors in a waste gas stream was evaluated. The SC-BTF was packed with cell-immobilized biochar beads and seeded mainly with Pseudomonas sp. YATO411 (a toluene degrader). The characteristics of packed beads and operating conditions, kinetics and microbia...

In this work, we used high resolution NMR spectroscopy to investigate metal cation chelation by the steroidal drug 1,4-pregnadiene-11β,17α,21-triol-3,20-dione (Prednisolone; abbreviated as Prd). Prd/MgCl2 and Prd/CaCl2 mixtures were prepared at eight different molar ratios. Using two-dimensional 1H/13C heteronuclear correlation spectroscopy, we wer...

Proteins are not designed to be standalone entities and must coordinate their collective action for optimum performance. Nature has developed through evolution the ability to colocalize the functional partners of a cascade enzymatic reaction in order to ensure efficient exchange of intermediates. Inspired by these natural designs, synthetic scaffol...

Photo-activated therapy is a non-invasive and promising medical technology for the treatment of cancers. Herein, we present Ce6-HA-CIS phototherapeutic nanohybrids composed of Cu-In-S (CIS) heterostructured nanorod (HS-rod), chlorin e6 (Ce6), and hyaluronic acid (HA) for the use in targeted photodynamic/photothermal therapy (PDT/PTT). In the Ce6-HA...

More than thirty human proteins and/or peptides can aggregate to form amyloid deposits that are linked to several amyloid diseases including clinical syndrome injection-localized amyloidosis, which is correlated with the aggregation of the 51-residue polypeptide insulin. While no cure is currently available toward tackling amyloid diseases, prevent...

Cupriavidus taiwanensis 187 is reportedly efficient in achieving the degradation of phenol and accumulation of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB). This study attempted to optimize the cultivation conditions and fermentation strategies for phenol degradation and PHA accumulation by C. taiwanensis 187. After the cultivation conditions were optimized, the cond...

The biosynthesis of prodigiosin (PG) from Serratia marcescens involves the coupling of a bipyrrole, 4-methoxy-2,2′-bipyrrole-5-carboxaldehyde (MBC), with a monopyrrole, 2-methyl-3-n-amyl-pyrrole (MAP), and formation of a linear tripyrrole (PG). We constructed mutant strains in which either the MBC biosynthesis by S. marcescens BMJ816 or the MAP bio...

In this study, Saccharomyces cerevisiae was engineered to degrade and utilize xylan, one of the major polysaccharide chains present in hemicellulose. Different hemicellulases from Trichoderma reesei, namely: endoxylanase, β-xylosidase, acetylxylan esterase, α-D-glucuronidase and α-L-arabinofuranosidase, were heterologously secreted by S. cerevisiae...

Climate change is directly linked to the rapid depletion of our non-renewable fossil resources and has posed concerns on sustainability. Thus, imploring the need for us to shift from our fossil based economy to a sustainable bioeconomy centered on biomass utilization. The efficient bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass (an ideal feedstock) to a...

Since Saccharomyces cerevisiae does not inherently possess the capability to utilize pentose sugars released from hemicellulose degradation, the degradation and utilization of hemicellulose poses a conundrum to bioethanol production by consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) using S. cerevisiae. In this study, S. cerevisiae was exploited for its ability t...

The various biological assembly strategies that have been presented and discussed in this chapter along with their respective examples have produced immobilized enzyme systems having preserved or enhanced catalytic activity, reusability and stability. In Section 5.9, the immobilized enzyme systems synthesized with the biological assembly strategies...

The creation of a bio-based economy (an economy based on biomass as a raw material) is one of the sustainable ways to prevent climate change (due to the increased greenhouse gas emissions by fossil industries) as it shifts our dependence from fossil-based to bio-based materials. The most abundant, renewable, and non-food competing substrate for the...

The aim of this study was to utilize a new and highly effective bioreactor system, i.e., simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSCF), for bioethanol production by the cocultivation of Trichoderma reesei, Aspergillus niger, and Zymomonas mobilis by using a direct conversion process of pretreated-wood dust medium. Wood dust has been effecti...

The aim of this work was to study the feasibility of surface displaying synthetic phytochelatin (EC) on Saccharomyces cerevisiae to overcome the inhibitory effect of heavy metals on ethanol production. Via the fusion of a gene encoding EC to an α-agglutinin gene, the engineered S. cerevisiae was able to successfully display EC on its surface. This...

The aim of this study was to use a modified bioreactor system for simultaneous saccharification of cellulose and bioethanol production. We tested Aspergillus niger and Trichoderma reesei for cellulose saccharification and Zymomonas mobilis for bioethanol production simultaneously in this modified bioreactor. The results showed that various carboxym...

Lignocellulosic biomass is considered as an abundant, renewable, and non-food competing substrate in platform chemical production. Its degradation and utilization is currently one of the main conundrums in consolidated bio-processing (CBP); specifically, the degradation hemicellulose, which is its second most abundant polysaccharide component. The...

Lignocellulosic biomass is considered as the “holy grail” of platform chemical production (e.g. bioethanol) since it is both abundant and a non-food competing resource. The degradation and utilization of this feedstock, especially its polysaccharide structural components (e.g. hemicellulose), is a challenge currently being addressed by the consolid...

Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) are nanoscale spheres naturally released from Gram-negative bacteria. They contain a diverse array of proteins and lipopolysaccharide but do not replicate, which increases their safety profile and renders them attractive for environmental applications. Herein, an efficient and reusable biocatalyst for enhanced degrada...

The degradation and utilization of hemicellulose poses a conundrum to bioethanol production by consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) since S. cerevisiae (a commonly utilized CBP microorganism based on its high ethanol production capability) does not inherently possess the capability to utilize pentose sugars (e.g. xylose) released from hemicellulose deg...

Controlling local concentrations of reactants, intermediates, and enzymes in synthetic pathways is critical for achieving satisfactory productivity of any desired products. An emerging approach to exert control over local concentrations is the use of synthetic biomolecular scaffolds to co-localize key molecules of synthetic pathways. These scaffold...

Engineering enzymes with higher activities, stabilities and reusabilities has been constantly pursued for applications of enzymatic catalysis in industrial, pharmaceutical and environmental processes. We report here a novel approach to prepare efficient biocatalysts in vivo for enhanced degradation of organophosphate nerve agents. Organophosphorus...

A high-throughput and selective method based on biomolecule affinity coordination was employed for measuring nanoparticle surface area in solution. In this design, silver binding peptides (AgBPs) are immobilized on bacterial cellulose via the fusion with cellulose binding domains to capture silver nanoparticles whereas green fluorescent proteins ar...

An efficient, selective and reusable biosorbent is important for previous metal recovery. This paper examines the recovery of palladium Pd(II) from wastewater on designed biomolecule-cellulose complexes. A genetically engineered fusion protein composed of palladium binding peptides (PdBP) and cellulose binding domains (CBD) was expressed in Escheri...

Biomolecules natively possess their specific interaction with metals and thus can be promising tools for precious metal recovery from solution phases. In this study, we genetically engineered a biomolecule consisting of a silver-binding peptide and a cellulose-binding domain for simultaneous silver recovery and bactericidal bionanocomposite formati...

Proteins inherently are not designed to be standalone entities. Whether it is a multi-step biochemical reaction or a signaling event that triggers several other cascading events, proteins are naturally designed to function cohesively. Several natural systems have been developed through evolution to co-localize the functional proteins of the same pa...

For the first time, artificial cellulosome structures were created on DNA scaffolds based on zinc finger protein (ZFP)-guided assembly. These resulting two-component cellulosome structures exhibited enhancement in cellulose hydrolysis compared to the non-complexed mixture depending on the number of CBMs and cellulases assembled.

Whole-cell biosensors are a good alternative to enzyme-based biosensors since they offer the benefits of low cost and improved stability. In recent years, live cells have been employed as biosensors for a wide range of targets. In this review, we will focus on the use of microorganisms that are genetically modified with the desirable outputs in ord...

Microorganisms have an essential role in degradation of xenobiotics in the environment. Whole cell immobilization has been demonstrated to offer obvious advantages over conventional biological systems using freely suspended cells, especially for recalcitrant compounds. A pure strain, Pseudomonas sp. YATO411, was isolated from a bioreactor in our la...

BACKGROUND: A bench-scale biotrickling filter coupled with Pseudomonas citronellolis YAIP521-immobilized polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/alginate beads was developed for kinetic analysis of microbial removal of isopropyl alcohol (IPA), an organic solvent widely used for fabricating wafers and printed circuit boards. RESULTS: Response surface methodology (R...

Immobilization of enzymes onto nanoparticles for enhanced biocatalytic activity via enzyme clustering is a growing field. In this paper, the effect of nanoparticle size on the hydrolytic activity of artificial cellulosomes was investigated. A simple method based on metal affinity coordination was employed to directly conjugate two enzymes, an endog...

A new adaptive strategy was developed for the ex vivo assembly of a functional tetravalent designer cellulosome on the yeast cell surface. The design is based on the use of (1) a surface-bound anchoring scaffoldin composed of two divergent cohesin domains, (2) two dockerin-tagged adaptor scaffoldins to amplify the number of enzyme loading sites bas...

While protein purification has long been dominated by standard chromatography, the relatively high cost and complex scale-up have promoted the development of alternative non-chromatographic separation methods. Here we developed a new non-chromatographic affinity method for the purification of proteins expressed in Escherichia coli. The approach is...

The use of nanostructures for enzyme immobilization is an attractive method to increase the overall activity and stability. Self-assembly of enzyme nanostructures has also been shown to provide similar beneficial effects with improved control at the molecular level. In this review paper, we highlighted the recent success in the use of biological as...

Efficient hydrolysis of cellulose to glucose is gaining momentum because of its significant role in biofuel production. Cellulosome is a naturally occurring multi-enzyme system with a substantially enhanced ability for cellulose hydrolysis due to the effect of substrate targeting and enzyme clustering. The major component of cellulosome is a struct...

Arsenic is one of the most hazardous pollutants found in aqueous environments and has been shown to be a carcinogen. Phytochelatins (PCs), which are cysteine-rich and thio-reactive peptides, have high binding affinities for various metals including arsenic. Previously, we demonstrated that genetically engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains exp...

The recalcitrant nature of cellulosic materials and the high cost of enzymes required for efficient hydrolysis are the major impeding steps to their practical usage for ethanol production. Ideally, a recombinant microorganism, possessing the capability to utilize cellulose for simultaneous growth and ethanol production, is of great interest. We hav...

In this paper, we report the surface assembly of a functional minicellulosome by using a synthetic yeast consortium. The basic design of the consortium consisted of four different engineered yeast strains capable of either displaying a trifunctional scaffoldin, Scaf-ctf (SC), carrying three divergent cohesin domains from Clostridium thermocellum (t...

In nature, both prokaryotes and eukaryotes have evolved a wide spectrum of pathways such as oxidation/reduction, compartmentalization, exclusion, and immobilization [16] as the main natural defense mechanisms to arsenic. This review highlights our current understanding of the biochemistry and molecular biology involved in these natural arsenic meta...

We demonstrated the functional display of a miniscaffoldin on the Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell surface consisting of three divergent cohesin domains from Clostridium thermocellum (t), Clostridium cellulolyticum (c), and Ruminococcus flavefaciens (f). Incubation with Escherichia coli lysates containing an endoglucanase (CelA) fused with a dockerin...

A spiral packed-bed bioreactor inoculated with microorganisms obtained from activated sludge was used to conduct a feasibility study for phenol removal. The reactor was operated continuously at various phenol loadings ranging from 53 to 201.4 g m−3 h−1, and at different hydraulic retention times (HRT) in the range of 20–180 min to estimate the perf...

Cellulosomes are cellulolytic complexes found in many anaerobic microorganisms and have been shown to degrade cellulose efficiently. The major component of these macromolecule complexes is a structural scaffoldin consisting of repeating cohesin domains, which are docked individually with a cellulase tagged dockerin domain. The specific cohesin-dock...

The influence of zinc, manganese, and nickel on the degradation of MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether), by an aerobic MTBE-degrading strain, Ochrobactrum cytisi, were investigated. The result showed that unlike previous findings, O. cytisi was able to degrade MTBE through direct metabolism when MTBE was present as the only carbon source. The degradation...

Biodegradation of MTBE under various multi-substrate conditions by Pseudomonas aeruginosa was investigated in this research. The addition of BTEX in various combinations significantly inhibited MTBE biodegradation. This result was mainly due to the non-competitive inhibition between MTBE and BTEX compounds. The rate of MTBE biodegradation decreased...

A mixed culture was utilized to evaluate methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) removal under various conditions and to isolate a MTBE-degrading pure culture. The results showed that high MTBE removal efficiencies can be reached even in the presence of other substrates. The biodegradation sequence of the target compounds by the mixed culture, in order of r...