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Wenyu Gu

Designing Synthetic Microbial Communities for Enhanced Anaerobic Waste Treatment

Synthetic microbial communities (SynComs) are powerful tools for investigating microbial interactions and community assembly by focusing on minimal yet functionally representative members. Here, we will highlight key principles for designing SynComs, speci ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2025

Effects of CO2 and H2 limitations on Methanococcus maripaludis

Wenyu Gu

Hydrogenotrophic methanogens play a key role in anaerobic ecosystems by catalyzing the bioconversion of hydrogen (H 2 ) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) into methane (CH 4 ) and water. This metabolic process is the basis of biological power-to-methane (PtM) tech ...

American Society for Microbiology2025

Resilience of aerobic methanotrophs in soils; spotlight on the methane sink under agriculture

Meret Aeppli, Wenyu Gu

Aerobic methanotrophs are a specialized microbial group, catalyzing the oxidation of methane. Disturbance-induced loss of methanotroph diversity/abundance, thus results in the loss of this biological methane sink. Here, we synthesized and conceptualized th ...

Oxford Univ Press2024

Structural comparison of (hyper-)thermophilic nitrogenase reductases from three marine Methanococcales

Wenyu Gu

The FEBS Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Federation of European Biochemical Societies.The nitrogenase reductase NifH catalyses ATP-dependent electron delivery to the Mo-nitrogenase, a reaction central to biological dinitrogen (N2) f ...

2024

Nitrogen Fixation and Hydrogen Evolution by Sterically Encumbered Mo-Nitrogenase

Wenyu Gu

The substrate-reducing proteins of all nitrogenases (MoFe, VFe, and FeFe) are organized as alpha 2ss2(gamma 2) multimers with two functional halves. While their dimeric organization could afford improved structural stability of nitrogenases in vivo, previo ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2023

The Mononuclear Metal-Binding Site of Mo-Nitrogenase Is Not Required for Activity

Wenyu Gu

The biological N-2-fixation process is catalyzed exclusively by metallocofactor-containing nitrogenases. Structural and spectroscopic studies highlighted the presence of an additional mononuclear metal-binding (MMB) site, which can coordinate Fe in additio ...

Amer Chemical Soc2023