Molecular Dissection of Bacterial Nanowires

ABSTRACT The discovery of bacterial conductive structures, termed nanowires, has intrigued scientists for almost a decade. Nanowires enable bacteria to transfer electrons over micrometer distances to extracellular electron acceptors such as insoluble metal oxides or electrodes. Nanowires are pilus b...

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Autores principales:	Thomas Boesen, Lars Peter Nielsen
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	American Society for Microbiology 2013
Materias:	Microbiology QR1-502
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/22d2c3e0b74d48aeba912874c6af5bcc
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:22d2c3e0b74d48aeba912874c6af5bcc2021-11-15T15:40:06ZMolecular Dissection of Bacterial Nanowires10.1128/mBio.00270-132150-7511https://doaj.org/article/22d2c3e0b74d48aeba912874c6af5bcc2013-07-01T00:00:00Zhttps://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mBio.00270-13https://doaj.org/toc/2150-7511ABSTRACT The discovery of bacterial conductive structures, termed nanowires, has intrigued scientists for almost a decade. Nanowires enable bacteria to transfer electrons over micrometer distances to extracellular electron acceptors such as insoluble metal oxides or electrodes. Nanowires are pilus based and in Geobacter sulfurreducens are composed of the type IV pilin subunit PilA. Multiheme c-type cytochromes have been shown to attach to nanowire pili. Two hypotheses have been proposed for electron conduction in nanowires. The first (termed the metal-like conductivity or MLC hypothesis) claims that the pilus itself has the electron-conductive properties and the attached cytochromes mediate transfer to the final electron acceptor, whereas the second hypothesis (termed the superexchange conductivity or SEC hypothesis) suggests that electrons are “hopping” between heme groups in cytochromes closely aligned with the pilus as a scaffold. In their recent article in mBio, Vargas et al. [M. Vargas, N. S. Malvankar, P.-L. Tremblay, C. Leang, J. A. Smith, P. Patel, O. Snoeyenbos-West, K. P. Nevin, and D. R. Lovley, mBio 4(2):e00210-13, 2013] address this ambiguity through an analysis of strain Aro-5, a G. sulfurreducens PilA mutant lacking aromatic residues in the nonconserved portion of PilA. These residues were suspected of involvement in electron transport according to the MLC hypothesis. The G. sulfurreducens mutant had reduced conductive properties, lending important support to the MLC hypothesis. The data also highlight the need for further and more conclusive evidence for one or the other hypothesis.Thomas BoesenLars Peter NielsenAmerican Society for MicrobiologyarticleMicrobiologyQR1-502ENmBio, Vol 4, Iss 3 (2013)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Microbiology QR1-502
spellingShingle	Microbiology QR1-502 Thomas Boesen Lars Peter Nielsen Molecular Dissection of Bacterial Nanowires
description	ABSTRACT The discovery of bacterial conductive structures, termed nanowires, has intrigued scientists for almost a decade. Nanowires enable bacteria to transfer electrons over micrometer distances to extracellular electron acceptors such as insoluble metal oxides or electrodes. Nanowires are pilus based and in Geobacter sulfurreducens are composed of the type IV pilin subunit PilA. Multiheme c-type cytochromes have been shown to attach to nanowire pili. Two hypotheses have been proposed for electron conduction in nanowires. The first (termed the metal-like conductivity or MLC hypothesis) claims that the pilus itself has the electron-conductive properties and the attached cytochromes mediate transfer to the final electron acceptor, whereas the second hypothesis (termed the superexchange conductivity or SEC hypothesis) suggests that electrons are “hopping” between heme groups in cytochromes closely aligned with the pilus as a scaffold. In their recent article in mBio, Vargas et al. [M. Vargas, N. S. Malvankar, P.-L. Tremblay, C. Leang, J. A. Smith, P. Patel, O. Snoeyenbos-West, K. P. Nevin, and D. R. Lovley, mBio 4(2):e00210-13, 2013] address this ambiguity through an analysis of strain Aro-5, a G. sulfurreducens PilA mutant lacking aromatic residues in the nonconserved portion of PilA. These residues were suspected of involvement in electron transport according to the MLC hypothesis. The G. sulfurreducens mutant had reduced conductive properties, lending important support to the MLC hypothesis. The data also highlight the need for further and more conclusive evidence for one or the other hypothesis.
format	article
author	Thomas Boesen Lars Peter Nielsen
author_facet	Thomas Boesen Lars Peter Nielsen
author_sort	Thomas Boesen
title	Molecular Dissection of Bacterial Nanowires
title_short	Molecular Dissection of Bacterial Nanowires
title_full	Molecular Dissection of Bacterial Nanowires
title_fullStr	Molecular Dissection of Bacterial Nanowires
title_full_unstemmed	Molecular Dissection of Bacterial Nanowires
title_sort	molecular dissection of bacterial nanowires
publisher	American Society for Microbiology
publishDate	2013
url	https://doaj.org/article/22d2c3e0b74d48aeba912874c6af5bcc
work_keys_str_mv	AT thomasboesen moleculardissectionofbacterialnanowires AT larspeternielsen moleculardissectionofbacterialnanowires
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Molecular Dissection of Bacterial Nanowires

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