Shu-Guang Wang

• Shandong University

CRISPR-Cas systems are transforming precision medicine with engineered probiotics as next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics. To promote human health and treat disease, engineering probiotic bacteria demands maximal versatility to enable non-natural functionalities while minimizing undesired genomic interferences. Here, we present a streamline...

Base editing is preferable for bacterial gene inactivation without generating double-strand breaks, requiring homology recombination, or highly efficient DNA delivery capability. However, the potential of base editing is limited by the adjoined dependence on the editing window and protospacer adjacent motif. Herein, we report an unconstrained base-...

CRISPR-Cas systems are transforming precision medicine with engineered probiotics as next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics. To promote human health and treat disease, engineering probiotic bacteria demands maximal versatility to enable non-natural functionalities while minimizing undesired genomic interferences. Here, we present a streamline...

Metal clusters or even single-atoms dispersed and anchored on the photocatalysts’ surface can enhance photocatalytic performances on organic pollutant oxidation. Here, a simple photoreduction method was used to create atomically dispersed metal single-atoms/clusters (MSCs, M = Cu, Pd, Au and Ag) on P-modulated tubular carbon nitride (TCN). The obta...

Growing concerns regarding the presence of pharmaceuticals in wastewater necessitate their removal. Membrane filtration offers a promising approach. This study explores the development of biochar incorporated mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) for ciprofloxacin removal from water. Biochar, derived from the pyrolysis of agricultural waste, was blended wi...

Biological valorization of lignin, the second most abundant biopolymer on Earth, is an indispensable sector to build a circular economy and net-zero future. However, lignin is recalcitrant to bioupcycling, demanding innovative solutions. We report here the biological valorization of lignin-derived aromatic carbon to value-added chemicals without re...

Base editing is preferable for bacterial gene inactivation without generating double strand breaks, requiring homology recombination or highly efficient DNA delivery capability. However, the potential of base editing is limited by the adjoined dependence on the editing window and protospacer adjacent motif (PAM). Herein, we report an unconstrained...

Efficiently converting lignin, the second most abundant biopolymer on Earth, into valuable chemicals is pivotal for a circular economy and net-zero future. However, lignin is recalcitrant to bio-upcycling, demanding innovative solutions. We report here the biological valorization of lignin-derived aromatic carbon to value-added chemicals without re...

The Roseobacter clade bacteria are of great significance in marine ecology and biogeochemical cycles, and they are potential microbial chassis for marine synthetic biology due to their versatile metabolic capabilities. Here, we adapted a CRISPR-Cas-based system, base editing, with the combination of nuclease-deactivated Cas9 and deaminase for Roseo...

Phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) has been considered an environmental-friendly phosphate fertilizer without cadmium (Cd) input into soils, but its possibility of Cd fixation in soil needs to be explored. Since direct inoculation results in a rapid decline of the population and activity, we immobilized Bacillus megaterium with maize straw bioch...

Cadmium (Cd) pollution is regarded as a potent problem due to its hazard risks to the environment, making it crucial to be removed. Compared to the physicochemical techniques (e.g., adsorption, ion exchange, etc.), bioremediation is a promising alternative technology for Cd removal, due to its cost-effectiveness, and eco-friendliness. Among them, m...

The discharge of oily wastewater has increased dramatically and will bring serious environmental problems. In this work, a self-cleaning and anti-fouling g-C3N4/TiO2/PVDF composite membrane was fabricated via the layer-by-layer approach. The surface of as-prepared composite membrane displayed a superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic behavi...

Membrane fouling and the trade-off between membrane permeability and selectivity restrict the potential applications of membrane filtration for water treatment. ZIF-8 was found having great permeability and antibiofouling performance, but with issue on particle aggregation makes it difficult to achieve high ZIFs loading and fabricate a defect-free...

Cyanobacteria can directly convert carbon dioxide (CO2) at the atmospheric level to biofuels, value-added chemicals and food products, making them ideal candidates to alleviate global climate change. Despite decades-long pioneering successes, the development of genome-editing tools, especially the CRISPR-Cas-based approaches, seems to lag behind ot...

Capacitive deionization (CDI) is regarded as a promising water purification technology to tackle the global water crisis challenges. However, CDI technology is limited by the low capacity of harvesting more ions from highly concentrated feed water. This can be solved by coupling appropriate cathode with anode materials to enhance kinetics and capac...

Global climate change demands carbon-negative innovations to reduce the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). Cyanobacteria can fix CO2 from the atmosphere and can be genetically reprogrammed for the production of biofuels, chemicals and food products, making an ideal microbial chassis for carbon-negative biotechnology. However, the pr...

Global warming is approaching an alarming level due to the anthropogenic emission of carbon dioxide (CO2). To overcome the challenge, the reliance on fossil fuels needs to be alleviated, and a significant amount of CO2 needs to be sequestrated from the atmosphere. In this endeavor, carbon-neutral and carbon-negative biotechnologies are promising wa...

Sugar metabolism by Saccharomyces cerevisiae produces ample amounts of CO2 under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. High solubility of CO2 in fermentation media, contributing to enjoyable sensory properties of sparkling wine and beers by S. cerevisiae, might affect yeast metabolism. To elucidate the overlooked effects of CO2 on yeast metabolism...

Pharmaceuticals are necessary to be removed from environment. Herein TiO2 incorporated biochar made from pyrolysis of agricultural wastes was encapsulated into chitosan to obtain a novel hydrogel beads. This hydrogel beads executed a dual role as both adsorbent and sonocatalyst, which proved to be suitable for the removal of antibiotic ciprofloxaci...

The evolution and dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are prompting severe health and environmental issues. While environmental processes are key barriers preventing the spread of ARGs, they are often sources of ARGs at the same time, as ARGs may be required and accumulate in the biological treatment units. An upgrading of environme...

Background Converting carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) into value-added chemicals using engineered cyanobacteria is a promising strategy to tackle the global warming and energy shortage issues. However, most cyanobacteria are autotrophic and use CO 2 as a sole carbon source, which makes it hard to compete with heterotrophic hosts in either growth or producti...

Microplastics (MPs) are ubiquitous in drinking water and pose potential threats to human health. Despite increasingly attentions on the toxicity of MPs, the deleterious effects of MPs after chlorine disinfection, which might be a more accessible form of MPs, has rarely been considered. Here, we first treated pristine polystyrene microplastics (PS-M...

Wastewater treatment plants are suspected to be significant point sources of microplastic and nanoplastic particles (NPs) in the environment. As one of the main wastewater treatment processes, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) may change the physicochemical properties of NPs and further affect their migration. However, limited information is know...

Selenium (Se) is an essential trace element in the human body. Se-enriched agricultural products, obtained by applying Se fertilizer, are important sources of Se supplement. However, Se fertilizer may cause a series of environmental problems. This study investigated the transformation of exogenous selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) and selenite (SeO 3...

Background Isobutanol is an attractive biofuel with many advantages. Third-generation biorefineries that convert CO 2 into bio-based fuels have drawn considerable attention due to their lower feedstock cost and more ecofriendly refining process. Although autotrophic cyanobacteria have been genetically modified for isobutanol biosynthesis, there is...

Cadmium (Cd) is a widely distributed soil contaminant which induces oxidative damage and is therefore toxic to plants. Although selenium oxyanions such as selenite (SeO3²⁻) and selenate (SeO4²⁻) can alleviate Cd stress to plants, it is not known whether selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) are able to do the same. The present study demonstrated the posit...

Attractive membranes are critical for improving efficiencies of forward osmosis (FO) desalination process. In this study, a novel FO-PES-MoS2 thin film composite (TFC) membrane was assembled using the phase transfer method through merging MoS2 nanosheets into substrate casting solution. A sequence of characterization techniques was applied to test...

Background: Isobutanol is an attractive biofuel with advantages. Third-generation biorefineries that convert CO2 into bio-based fuels have drawn considerable attention due to their lower feedstock cost and more ecofriendly refining process. Although autotrophic cyanobacteria have been genetically modified for isobutanol biosynthesis, it is still la...

The residues of tetracycline in environment have raised increasing concern for the deleterious impact on ecological and human health. Natural organic matter (NOM), ubiquitous in natural waters, is unavoidable to encounter tetracycline, which might affect the fate of tetracycline in aquatic environment. In this study, we investigated the effect of n...

Iron-based nanoparticles (Fe-NPs), often applied for pollutant remediation, inevitably interact with various organisms either directly or indirectly. The well-acknowledged toxicological mechanisms for Fe-NPs on organisms are causing oxidative damage and...

The fouling of capacitive deionization (CDI) electrodes can adversely affect the CDI performance. One major foulant during water treatment relies on natural organic matter (NOM). A better understanding of the electroadsorption and electrochemical behavior of different groups NOM could clarify their relative contributions in electrode fouling. In th...

Anaerobic digestion is an attractive waste treatment technology, achieving both pollution control and energy recovery. Though the inhibition of polystyrene nanoplastics in anaerobic granular sludge is well studied, no direct evidence has been found on the interaction of methanogens and nanoplastics. In this study, to characterize the location of na...

Although the fates of microplastics (0.1–5 mm in size) and nanoplastics (<100 nm) in marine environments are being increasingly well studied1,2, little is known about the behaviour of nanoplastics in terrestrial environments3–6, especially agricultural soils⁷. Previous studies have evaluated the consequences of nanoplastic accumulation in aquatic p...

Phosphate-solubilizing bacteria (PSB) have been widely used as biological fertilizer. However, its impact on the local microbial community has less been known. In this study, a mixture of PSB was inoculated into the tomato growth alone or combined with manure fertilizer. The growth parameter results showed that the combination use of PSB and compos...

Capacitive deionization (CDI) is considered as a potential water purification technology for electrochemical removal of the salt from aqueous solutions. However, the development of an electrode material with adequate electro adsorption rate and capacity is still a major challenge. In this study, a N and P-doped three-dimensional (3D) structure of g...

Polystyrene nanoplastics (PS NPs), which are newly emerging as particulate pollutants, are one of the most abundant plastic types in marine debris. Although there has been extensive research on microplastics, the sorption behavior of PS NPs in surface waters remains unknown. In addition, in the previous joint toxicity studies, the concentration of...

The separation of oil/water emulsion has become a pressing worldwide problem. In this study, a novel type of photoinduced separation membrane was prepared via layer-by-layer (LBL) method of ZIF-8/GO composite. By integrating the unique physical and chemical properties of ZIF-8 and GO, the ZIF-8/GO membrane exhibits superior superoleophobicity under...

Recently, biochar is widely used as a soil amendment to improve soil properties, which might affect the fate and behavior of contaminants in soil. In this study, we investigated the effect of biochar on the migration of tetracycline (TC) in soil and their combined impacts on microbiome. Due to the strong interaction between soil and TC, adsorption,...

As the most typical geological environment, limestone landforms are widespreading in the world and affect the waters that flow around them, which may also change the fate of organic contaminants in these waters. In this study, aquatic environment surrounding limestone was simulated with calcium carbonate, and the photolysis of tetracycline was eval...

Nanofiltration polyamide membranes naturally tend towards biofouling, due to their surface physicochemistries. Nisin, a type of short cationic amphiphilic peptide with antimicrobial properties, has been recognized as a safe antimicrobial for food biopreservation and biomedical applications. This study investigates the impact of nisin on the initial...

Graphene oxide (GO) has been demonstrated to be key component for diverse applications. However, their potential environmental reactivity, fate and risk have not been fully evaluated to date. In this study, we investigated the photochemical reactivity of four types of GO with different oxidation degrees in aqueous environment, and their related tox...

It is a great challenge to realize the effective removal and transform of emerging pharmaceuticals from aquatic environment. In this study, MnO2 was used as a catalyst to achieve the degradation of tetracycline (TC) in situ on the surface of three-dimensional graphene (3DG). The removal of TC were also evaluated at different temperature, pH and ino...

Biological wastewater treatment is not effective in removal of antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). In this study, we fabricated a photocatalytic reactive membrane by functionalizing polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) ultrafiltration (UF) membrane with titanium oxide (TiO2) nanoparticles for the removal of ARB and...

The interactions between antibiotics and microorganisms have attracted enormous research attentions. In this study, we investigated the effects of two typical aminoglycoside antibiotics on the aggregation of the model cyanobacterium, Synechococcus elongatus, and the dominating strain in algal blooms, Microcystis aeruginosa, via the analysis of zeta...

Enzymatic degradation with laccase is a green option for removal of organic compounds from aqueous media. However, the development of high-performance support for immobilization of enzyme is constantly required for the advancement of this technology. In this study the laccase was facilely immobilized on graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets separation mem...

Synthetic biology enables infinite possibilities in biotechnology via employing genetic modules. However, not many researches have explored the potentials of synthetic biology in environmental bioprocesses. In this study, we introduced a genetic module harboring the codon-optimized tetracycline degrading gene, tetX.co, into the model host, Escheric...

Development of novel approaches for biofouling mitigation is of crucial importance for membrane-based technologies. d-amino acids (d-AAs) have been proposed as a potential strategy to mitigate biofouling. However, the effect of bacterial cell-wall properties and d-AAs type on biofouling mitigation remains unclear. This study assesses the effect of...

In this study, we evaluated the influences of graphene oxide (GO) on biofilm formation. Escherichia coli MG1655 and Bacillus subtilis 168 were used as models for Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. The growth profiles and viability assays indicated that GO exhibited a high antibacterial activity, of which the negative effects on bacteria grow...

As a novel chemical production platform, controllable and inducible modules in Synechococcus elongatus plus the ability of working in diurnal conditions are necessary. To the endeavors, inducible promoters, such as PTrc, have been refined from Escherichia coli, but the inducer isopropyl-β-D-thiogalactoside may cause several side-effects. Meanwhile,...

In nature, microorganisms mainly live in biofilms rather than planktonically to defend against various environmental stimuli. Understanding and predicting the dynamics and mechanisms of biofilms is of grand importance to human life. Besides experimental approaches, modeling provides a powerful tool to describe biofilms mathematically, and the in si...

The present study investigated the effect of the food-to-microorganism (F/M) ratio on nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in aerobic granular sludge sequencing batch airlift reactors. Three identical sequencing batch airlift reactors were fed with sodium acetate-based wastewater at different chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentrations, resulting in F/M r...

Microorganisms have evolved series of protective or adaptive responses to enhance survivability to fight against stresses in nature and engineered systems. Although the cellular responses and underlying mechanisms have been intensively studied, seldom research explored the possibilities of employing the microbial stress response via an inducible ro...

Biofouling is a critical issue in membrane separations. Development of novel approaches for biofouling mitigation is of crucial importance for membrane-based technologies. In this research, D-tyrosine was immobilized on a polyethersulfone (PES) ultrafiltration membrane (UF) to mitigate biofouling with the synergistic effects of surface hydrophilici...

Global climate change caused by the emission of anthropogenic greenhouse gasses (GHGs) is a grand challenge to humanity. To alleviate the trend, the consumption of fossil fuels needs to be largely reduced and alternative energy technologies capable of controlling GHG emissions are anticipated. In this study, we introduced a synthetic reductive pent...

The interactions between antibiotics and microorganisms have attracted lots of interests. As reported, low-level concentrations of antibiotics have been detected in various environments. Although many studies reported the inducing effects of antibiotics on biofilms, seldom research discussed their impacts on the ecological functions of microorganis...

The roles and functions of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) have been intensively studied. Besides the significance of EPS in microbial multi-cellular structure formation, the interaction between EPS and external stressors was also investigated. However, seldom research studied how EPS response to organic solvents, a general type of chemica...

Fast and effective methods for the removal of pollutants are crucial for the development of new sustainable water treatment technologies. In this work, we have reported the electrically accelerated removal of some typical organic pollutants by a three-dimensional graphene aerogel (3DG). The porous 3DG was fabricated by chemical reduction of graphen...

The optimization of operation parameters is a key consideration to minimize nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in biological nitrogen removal processes. So far, different parameters have only been investigated individually, making it difficult to compare their specific effects and combined influences. In this study, we applied the Plackett–Burman (PB) m...

Rapid advances in the capabilities of reading and writing DNA along with increasing understanding of microbial metabolism at the systems-level have paved an incredible path for metabolic engineering. Despite these advances, post-translational tools facilitating functional expression of heterologous enzymes in model hosts have not been developed wel...

Biogenic selenium nanoparticles (BioSeNPs), which were produced by aerobic granular sludge in a sequencing batch reactor (SBR), were used to remove cadmium from aqueous solution. Batch experiments were carried out to investigate the effect of contact time, initial solution pH and adsorbent dosage on adsorption. Langmuir model was more suitable to d...

This study aims to investigate the fate and behavior of tetracycline (TC) in nitrifying sludge system, as well as the effects of TC dosage on sludge performance. For this purpose, two TC spiked and two control laboratory reactors were operated for two months, while the spiked reactors (designated as RI and RII) were intermittently fed with TC at th...

Excellent perchlorate reduction was obtained under various initial concentrations in a non-membrane microbial electrolysis cell with polyaniline (PANI) modified graphite cathode as sole electron donor. PANI modification is conducive to the formation of biofilm due to its porous structure and good electrocatalytic performance. Compared with cathode...

Adsorption of three selected pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), ketoprofen (KEP), carbamazepine (CBZ) and bisphenol A (BPA) by two reduced graphene oxides (rGO1 and rGO2) and one commercial graphene was examined under different solution conditions. Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and...

Herein, graphene-polyaniline (GR-PANI) composite were synthesized via a combination of electrochemical polymerization and chemical technique. This in-situ approach allows GR and PANI to combine efficiently and anchor on electrode steadily, and the attractive interactions enable GR-PANI to provide superior electrochemical activities on the basis of...

Enhancing microbial electrocatalysis through new material design is essential to the efficient and stable operation of bio-electrochemical system (BES). In this work, a novel conductive carbon nanotube (CNT) hydrogel was fabricated by electrodepositing both CNT and chitosan onto a carbon paper electrode, and used as a BES anode electrode. The micro...

The sludge floc stability is essential for the solid/liquid separation in biological wastewater treatment. In this study, the effect of an exogenous d-tyrosine on the shear stability and surface characteristics of activated sludge flocs was investigated. Sludge flocs were found to be less stable in the addition of d-tyrosine. d-Tyrosine inhibited t...

This study used two anoxic/oxic sequencing batch reactors (A/O SBRs) respectively with pulse-feed (PF-SBR) and step-feed (SF-SBR) to investigate the effects of step-feed on partial nitrifying granules. The stable partial nitrification lasted 111 and 139days in PF-SBR and SF-SBR, and then gradually switched to full nitrification. Granules in both re...

The antibiotics have attracted global attentions for their impact on aquatic ecosystem. The knowledge about the fate of antibiotics encountering extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) is, however, limited. In this study, we investigated the interacting mechanisms of tetracycline (TC) to EPS extracted from aerobic activated sludge. The contributio...

Individual and competitive adsorption characteristics of Cr(VI) and phosphate (P) onto synthetic Fe–Al hydroxides were investigated. A series of batch experiments were performed to study the influence of various experimental parameters (pH, ionic strength and contact time) on Cr(VI) and P adsorption. Removal efficiency of Cr(VI) and P decreased wit...

Biofuel cells (BFCs) use enzymes and microbial cells to produce energy from bioavailable substrates and treat various wastewaters, and cathodic oxygen reduction is a key factor governing the efficiency of BFCs. In this study, we demonstrated that a green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, could directly mediate oxygen reduction. Cyclic voltammogram a...

Adsorption of two natural organic matter (NOM) surrogates (tannic acid and gallic acid) by powdered activated carbon (PAC) and four kinds of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with different diameters was investigated in aqueous solution. The tannic acid (TA) adsorption isotherm fit the Langmuir model best, while adsorption of gallic acid (GA) f...

Endosulfan is one of the few organic chlorine insecticides still in use today in many developing countries. It has medium toxicity for fish and aquatic invertebrates. In this study, we added different concentrations of endosulfan to a series of soil samples collected from Baihua Park in Jinan, Shandong Province, China. Interactions of exogenous end...

Accumulation of hard-to-degrade or nondegradable chemicals may be created in a long-time granule sludge treatment process. The excess accumulation of target chemicals on aerobic granules (AG) might induce inevitable release in sequencing batch reactors. In order to investigate the combined extent on AG with oxytetracycline (OTC) and copper as well...

Polyaniline (PANI) films were electrochemically synthesized on graphite electrode and their ion-exchange selectivities for ClO4− were investigated. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) results showed that PANI-H2SO4 film represented higher selectivity for ClO4− than PANI–HCl and PANI–HClO4. Furthermore, the CV records of PANI–H2SO4 film in different acidic solu...

Aerobic granules to treat wastewater containing methylene blue (MB) were successfully developed in a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) using activated sludge as inoculum. After cultivation for 87 days, stable aerobic granules were obtained with a clearly defined shape and a diameters ranging from 2 to 4 mm. After granulation, the removal efficiencies...

This paper examines the simultaneous sorption and biodegradation performance of tetracycline (TC) by the nitrifying granular sludge as well as the short-term exposure toxicity of TC. The removal of TC was characterized by a quick sorption and a slow process of biodegradation. The adsorption process fits pseudo-second-order kinetic model, with a com...

In the research and application of microbial fuel cell (MFC), how to incorporate MFCs into current wastewater infrastructure is an importance issue. Here, we report a novel strategy of integrating an MFC into a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) to test the energy production and the chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal. The membrane-less biocathode MFC...

Developing a novel biosorbent with high capacity is crucial to remove dyes from waters in an efficient way. This study demonstrated that porous anaerobic granular sludge could be grafted with polyethylenimine (PEI), which definitely improved the sorption capacity towards Acid Red 18 (AR18) removal. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Fourier...

New developments in biocathode microbial fuel cells (MFCs) provide an increasing possibility to use the MFC technology for sustainable wastewater treatment. Enhanced oxygen reduction and biofilm formation using novel cathode materials are crucial for the biocathode MFCs. Here we report the use of a conductive and compatible carbon nanotube/chitosan...

Microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) provides a sustainable way for hydrogen production from organic matters, but it still suffers from the lack of efficient and cost-effective cathode catalyst. In this work carbon paper coated with Pd nanoparticles was prepared using electrochemical deposition method and used as the cathodic catalyst in an MEC to fac...