Abstract
SummaryElectromicrobiology is a subdiscipline of microbiology that involves extracellular electron transfer (EET) to (or from) insoluble electron active redox compounds located outside the outer membrane of the cell. These interactions can often be studied using electrochemical techniques which have provided novel insights into microbial physiology in recent years. The mechanisms (and variations) of outward EET are well understood for two model systems, Shewanella and Geobacter, both of which employ multihaem cytochromes to provide an electron conduit to the cell exterior. In contrast, little is known of the intricacies of inward EET, even in these model systems. Given the number of labs now working on EET, it seems likely that most of the mechanistic details will be understood in a few years for the model systems, and the many applications of electromicrobiology will continue to move forward. But emerging work, using electrodes as electron acceptors and donors is providing an abundance of new types of microbes capable of EET inward and/or outward: microbes that are clearly different from our known systems. The extent of this very diverse, and perhaps widely distributed and biogeochemically important ability needs to be determined to understand the mechanisms, importance, and raison d'etre of EET for microbial biology.
Highlights
SummaryElectromicrobiology is a subdiscipline of microbiology that involves extracellular electron transfer (EET) to (or from) insoluble electron active redox compounds located outside the outer membrane of the cell
Microbial Biotechnology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for Applied Microbiology, Microbial Biotechnology, 9, 595–600
Recent discoveries in electromicrobiology have pointed to the fact, we are only ‘scratching the surface’ in terms of understanding microbe–electrode interactions, with important implications to environmental microbiology
Summary
Electromicrobiology is a subdiscipline of microbiology that involves extracellular electron transfer (EET) to (or from) insoluble electron active redox compounds located outside the outer membrane of the cell These interactions can often be studied using electrochemical techniques which have provided novel insights into microbial physiology in recent years. Electromicrobiology has moved some new and unexpected substrates into the realm of microbial metabolism – substrates that were previously deemed ‘off-limits’ or ‘non-edible’ given our previous knowledge of microbial metabolisms This realization started in 1988, with the reports of two dissimilatory metal reducing microbes in genera that would eventually be named Shewanella (Myers and Nealson, 1988; Venkateswaran et al, 1999) and Geobacter (Lovley and Phillips, 1988). Considering that: (i) flavins (riboflavin or flavin mononucleotide) bind to these proteins, changing their redox potentials (Okamoto et al, 2013, 2014a,b; Edwards et al, 2015; Xu et al, 2016); (ii) flavins and other quinone-type molecules at high concentration may serve as electron shuttles to more distant electron acceptors (Gralnick, 2012) and (iii) conductive nanowires may carry electrons to more distant electron acceptors (Gorby et al, 2006; ElNaggar et al, 2010), one begins to see the potential metabolic broadening that EET provides the microbial world (El-Naggar and Finkel, 2013)
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