Key Methanococcus Electron Transfer Enzymes Can Work Outside Cells

Abstract

Enzymes from microorganisms such as Methanococcus maripaludis and Sporomusa sphaeroides can interact directly with nearby solid surfaces, taking up electrons and forming intermediates that the cells quickly consume, according to Jorg Deutzmann, Merve Sahin, and Alfred Spormann from Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. This process could be “an ecologically important but so far overlooked mechanism in biological electron transfer,” they say—one with an important impact on electrosynthesis but also on microbially induced corrosion, which leads to losses of more than $1 billion per year. Details appeared 21 April 2015 in mBio (doi:10.1128/mBio.00496–15).