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INTERSPECIES ELECTRON TRANSFER ENABLES PHOTSYNTHESIS OF Prosthecochloris aestuarii


EMSL Project ID
49207

Abstract

The goal of this research is to examine if Prosthecochloris aestuarii cells are able to utilize electrons transferred from a metal reducing bacterium Geobacter sulfurreducens for the photosynthesis. Our results revealed that when being co-cultured together in the presence of light with acetate as the sole electron donor and CO2 is the sole electron acceptor, G. sulfurreducens oxidize acetate and transfers electrons to P. aestuarii. The co-culture experiment using an extracellular electron transfer deficient mutant of G. sulfurreducens strain was unable to consume acetate and to grow. This suggested that the interspecies electron transfer between P. aestuarii and G. sulfurreducens is involved in the direct electron transfer pathway via conductive cell materials. In conclusion, we demonstrated that the interspecies electron transfer between G. sulfurreducens and P. aestuarii were stimulated by the presence of light under which the photosynthesis occurs. We hypothesize that the outer membrane cytochrome c proteins contribute the major role in carrying electron from G. sulfurreducens to P. aestuarii. In addition, in order to transfer electrons more efficiently, G. sulfurreducens should use outer membrane cell vesicles which contain outer membrane cytochrome c proteins to carry electrons to the P. aestuarii at far distance. The use of EMSL resources will allow us to image the cell-cell electron transfer processes and test our hypothesis. We request 40 hours of thin section TEM and Cryo-TEM time for this work to investigate the cell-cell interactions and to determine the involvement of specific cell components to the interspecies electron transfer processes between two strains in their co-culture. In the past we have done similar type of works in collaboration with Alice Dohnalkova and generated publications demonstrating our productivity

Project Details

Project type
Limited Scope
Start Date
2016-03-07
End Date
2016-05-04
Status
Closed

Team

Principal Investigator

Haluk Beyenal
Institution
Washington State University

Team Members

Phuc Ha
Institution
Washington State University

Related Publications

Tanzil AH, ST Sultana, SR Saunders, A Dohnalkova, L Shi, E Devanport, PT Ha, and H Beyenal. 2016. "Production of Gold Nanoparticles by Electrode-Respiring Geobacter sulfurreducens Biofilms." Enzyme and Microbial Technology 95:69-75. doi:10.1016/j.enzmictec.2016.07.012