Aristilde Lab @ Northwestern Engineering

Soil bacterium tunes metabolic network for lignin carbon processing. Credit: Aristilde Research Group

How do soil bacteria balance energy metabolism with carbon #metabolism in using #lignin carbons? Check out our @commsbio.nature.com article on how we figure out the "traffic jams" and "stoplights" in Pseudomonas metabolic reactions in lignin #carbon conversion.
Link: www.nature.com/articles/s42...

08.09.2025 16:10 — 👍 1    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

Illustration of water trapped as molecular bridges at carbohydrate-clay interfaces. Image by the Aristilde Research Group

Curious about how certain soils can retain moisture for a long time? Check out our article in @pnasnexus.org on how organic matter facilitates trapping of water in soil mineral nanopores. Funded by @iinanonu.bsky.social and National Science Foundation. Article link: academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

31.08.2025 17:07 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Pseudomonas putida preprint alert: We provide a quantitative blueprint of #carbon and #energy fluxes for the native metabolism of #lignin aromatics: ferulate, coumarate, vanillate, and hydroxybenzoate.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

04.04.2025 20:40 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Iron Oxides Act as Natural Catalysts to Unlock Phosphorus to Fuel Plant Growth A new study by Professor Ludmilla Aristilde found that minerals drive phosphorus release at enzyme-like rates.

Professor Ludmilla Aristilde and her team unraveled natural mineral catalysts as a new pathway to convert phosphorus from its organic to its inorganic form, which could improve agricultural sustainability as phosphorus supplies dwindle.

www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/article...

06.03.2025 15:54 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Quantitative Benchmarking of Catalytic Parameters for Enzyme-Mimetic Ribonucleotide Dephosphorylation by Iron Oxide Minerals Iron oxides, which are documented phosphorus (P) sinks as adsorbents, have been shown to catalyze organic P dephosphorylation, implicating these minerals as catalytic traps in P cycling. However, quantitative evaluation of this abiotic catalysis is lacking. Here, we investigated the dephosphorylation kinetics of eight ribonucleotides, with different nucleobase structures and P stoichiometry, reacting with common iron oxides. X-ray absorption spectroscopy determined that 0–98% of mineral-bound P was recycled inorganic P (Pi). Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization with mass spectrometry demonstrated short-lived triphosphorylated and monophosphorylated ribonucleotides bound to goethite. Based on Michaelis-Menten type modeling of the kinetic evolution of both dissolved and mineral-bound Pi, maximal Pi production rates from triphosphorylated ribonucleotides reacted with goethite (1.9–16.1 μmol Pi h–1 ggoethite–1) were >5-fold higher than with hematite and ferrihydrite; monophosphorylated ribonucleotides generated only mineral-bound Pi at similar rates (0.0–12.9 μmol Pi h–1 gmineral–1) across minerals. No clear distinction was observed between purine-based and pyrimidine-based ribonucleotides. After normalization to mineral-dependent Pi binding capacity, resulting catalytic turnover rates implied surface chemistry-controlled reactivity. Ribonucleotide–mineral complexation mechanisms were identified with infrared spectroscopy and molecular modeling. We estimated iron oxide-catalyzed rates in soil (0.01–5.5 μmol Pi h–1 gsoil) comparable to reported soil phosphatase rates, highlighting both minerals and enzymes as relevant catalysts in P cycling.

How fast and how efficient can iron oxides catalyze phosphate cleavage from ribonucleotides? Our latest publication presents rates and turnover numbers for #enzyme-like reaction by #iron oxides, a missing piece of the #phosphorus cycle.
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

05.03.2025 02:48 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Aristilde Lab publishes biochemical discoveries in 2024 From discovering plastic-eating bacterium to finding a new catalytic process in soils, the Aristilde Research Group had a busy year in 2024. It published seven papers and submitted four more for revie...

Aristilde Lab featured in the Daily Northwestern.
dailynorthwestern.com/2025/02/11/c...

22.02.2025 16:50 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Aristilde Lab group picture taken Fall 2024.

Aristilde Lab....Fall 2024 Group Picture

16.11.2024 20:45 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0