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Our field of work

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Polymers are essential to life in modern society with critical roles in the production of an array of materials. Unfortunately, their ubiquitous nature has resulted in significant environmental accumulation in our oceans and landfills, which in part is resultant from shortcomings associated with recycling. Recent efforts have pursued biodegradable replacements for traditional petroleum-derived polymers with the primary focus on plastics. While these efforts are warranted, and garner media attention because of their visible accumulation, there is an equal necessity to investigate degradation of those polymers we cannot see, water-soluble polymers (WSPs). The Miller laboratory is interested in the development of engineered enzyme tools to degrade WSPs that may occur as environmental pollutants

Summary figure from a recent publication

Publications from this lab

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  • Timothy Lamantia, Amanda Jansch, Justin D. Marsee, Mitch H. Weiland, Justin M. Miller, "Engineered Sphingomonas sp. KT-1 PahZ1 monomers efficiently degrade poly(aspartic acid)", Biophysical Chemistry, Volume 281,2022 ,106745 ,ISSN 0301-4622, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpc.2021.106745.
     

  • Chad A. Brambley, Tarah J. Yared, Marriah Gonzalez, Amanda L. Jansch, Jamie R. Wallen, Mitch H. Weiland, and Justin M. Miller. "Sphingomonas sp. KT-1 PahZ2 Structure Reveals a Role for Conformational Dynamics in Peptide Bond Hydrolysis"
    The Journal of Physical Chemistry B 2021 125 (22), 5722-5739. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.1c01216
     

  • J.M. Miller, C.A. Brambley, and J.D. Marsee. “Examination of the Role of Mg2+ in the Mechanism of Nucleotide Binding to the Monomeric YME1L AAA+ Domain.” ACS Biochemistry. 59(45), 4303-4320. (2020).

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  • Chad A. Brambley, Austin L. Bolay, Henry Salvo, Amanda L. Jansch, Tarah J. Yared, Justin M. Miller, Jamie R. Wallen, and Mitch H. Weiland. (2020). "Structural Characterization of Sphingomonas sp. KT-1 PahZ1-Catalyzed Biodegradation of Thermally Synthesized Poly(aspartic acid)" ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 2020 8 (29)

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  • Sydney Moore, Alyssa Pickens, Jessica L. Rodriguez, Justin D. Marsee, Justin M. Miller (2020). "Fluorescence Methods Applied to the Description of Urea-Dependent YME1L Protease Unfolding." Biomolecules."10(4):656. 

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Please click here to be directed to Dr. Miller's full body of work

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