It has been proposed that Geobacter sulfurreducens requires conductive pili for long-range electron transport to Fe(III) oxides and for high-density current production in microbial fuel cells. In order to investigate this further, we constructed a strain of G. sulfurreducens, designated Aro-5, which produced pili with diminished conductivity. This was accomplished by modifying the amino acid sequence of PilA, the structural pilin protein. An alanine was substituted for each of the five aromatic amino acids in the carboxyl terminus of PilA, the region in which G. sulfurreducens PilA differs most significantly from the PilAs of microorganisms incapable of long-range extracellular electron transport. Strain Aro-5 produced pili that were properly decorated with the multiheme c-type cytochrome OmcS, which is essential for Fe(III) oxide reduction. However, pili preparations of the Aro-5 strain had greatly diminished conductivity and Aro-5 cultures were severely limited in their capacity to reduce Fe(III) compared to the control strain. Current production of the Aro-5 strain, with a graphite anode serving as the electron acceptor, was less than 10% of that of the control strain. The conductivity of the Aro-5 biofilms was 10-fold lower than the control strain’s. These results demonstrate that the pili of G. sulfurreducens must be conductive in order for the cells to be effective in extracellular long-range electron transport.

Direct measurement of multiple physical properties of Geobacter sulfurreducens pili have demonstrated that they possess metallic-like conductivity, but several studies have suggested that metallic-like conductivity is unlikely based on the structures of the G. sulfurreducens pilus predicted from homology models. In order to further evaluate this discrepancy, pili were examined with synchrotron X-ray microdiffraction and rocking-curve X-ray diffraction. Both techniques revealed a periodic 3.2-Å spacing in conductive, wild-type G. sulfurreducens pili that was missing in the nonconductive pili of strain Aro5, which lack key aromatic acids required for conductivity. The intensity of the 3.2-Å peak increased 100-fold when the pH was shifted from 10.5 to 2, corresponding with a previously reported 100-fold increase in pilus conductivity with this pH change. These results suggest a clear structure-function correlation for metallic-like conductivity that can be attributed to overlapping π-orbitals of aromatic amino acids. A homology model of the G. sulfurreducens pilus was constructed with a Pseudomonas aeruginosa pilus model as a template as an alternative to previous models, which were based on a Neisseria gonorrhoeae pilus structure. This alternative model predicted that aromatic amino acids in G. sulfurreducens pili are packed within 3 to 4 Å, consistent with the experimental results. Thus, the predictions of homology modeling are highly sensitive to assumptions inherent in the model construction. The experimental results reported here further support the concept that the pili of G. sulfurreducens represent a novel class of electronically functional proteins in which aromatic amino acids promote long-distance electron transport.

It has been predicted that the Rnf complex of Clostridium ljungdahlii is a proton-translocating ferredoxin:NAD+ oxidoreductase which contributes to ATP synthesis by an H+-translocating ATPase under both autotrophic and heterotrophic growth conditions. The recent development of methods for genetic manipulation of C. ljungdahlii made it possible to evaluate the possible role of the Rnf complex in energy conservation. Disruption of the C. ljungdahlii rnf operon inhibited autotrophic growth. ATP synthesis, proton gradient, membrane potential, and proton motive force collapsed in the Rnf-deficient mutant with H2 as the electron source and CO2 as the electron acceptor. Heterotrophic growth was hindered in the absence of a functional Rnf complex, as ATP synthesis, proton gradient, and proton motive force were significantly reduced with fructose as the electron donor. Growth of the Rnf-deficient mutant was also inhibited when no source of fixed nitrogen was provided. These results demonstrate that the Rnf complex of C. ljungdahlii is responsible for translocation of protons across the membrane to elicit energy conservation during acetogenesis and is a multifunctional device also implicated in nitrogen fixation.

The conductive pili of Geobacter species play an important role in electron transfer to Fe(III) oxides, in long-range electron transport through current-producing biofilms, and in direct interspecies electron transfer. Although multiple lines of evidence have indicated that the pili of Geobacter sulfurreducens have a metal-like conductivity, independent of the presence of c-type cytochromes, this claim is still controversial. In order to further investigate this phenomenon, a strain of G. sulfurreducens, designated strain PA, was constructed in which the gene for the native PilA, the structural pilin protein, was replaced with the PilA gene of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1. Strain PA expressed and properly assembled P. aeruginosa PilA subunits into pili and exhibited a profile of outer surface c-type cytochromes similar to that of a control strain expressing the G. sulfurreducens PilA. Surprisingly, the strain PA pili were decorated with the c-type cytochrome OmcS in a manner similar to the control strain. However, the strain PA pili were 14-fold less conductive than the pili of the control strain, and strain PA was severely impaired in Fe(III) oxide reduction and current production. These results demonstrate that the presence of OmcS on pili is not sufficient to confer conductivity to pili and suggest that there are unique structural features of the G. sulfurreducens PilA that are necessary for conductivity.

Powering microbes with electrical energy to produce valuable chemicals such as biofuels has recently gained traction as a biosustainable strategy to reduce our dependence on oil. Microbial electrosynthesis (MES) is one of the bioelectrochemical approaches developed in the last decade that could have critical impact on the current methods of chemical synthesis. MES is a process in which electroautotrophic microbes use electrical current as electron source to reduce CO2 to multicarbon organics. Electricity necessary for MES can be harvested from renewable resources such as solar energy, wind turbine, or wastewater treatment processes. The net outcome is that renewable energy is stored in the covalent bonds of organic compounds synthesized from greenhouse gas. This review will discuss the future of MES and the challenges that lie ahead for its development into a mature technology.

Geobacter metallireducens is an important model organism for many novel aspects of extracellular electron exchange and the anaerobic degradation of aromatic compounds, but studies of its physiology have been limited by a lack of techniques for gene deletion and replacement. Therefore, a genetic system was developed for G. metallireducens by making a number of modifications in the previously described approach for homologous recombination in Geobacter sulfurreducens. Critical modifications included, among others, a 3.5-fold increased in the quantity of electrotransformed linear DNA and the harvesting of cells at early-log. The Cre-lox recombination system was used to remove an antibiotic resistance cassette from the G. metallireducens chromosome permitting the generation of multiple mutations in the same strain. Deletion of the gene fliC, which encodes the flagellin protein, resulted in a strain that did not produce flagella, was non-motile, and was defective for the reduction of insoluble Fe(III). Deletion of pilA, which encodes the structural protein of the type IV pili, inhibited the production of lateral pili as well as Fe(III) oxide reduction and electron transfer to an electrode. These results demonstrate the importance of flagella and pili in the reduction of insoluble Fe(III) by G. metallireducens and provide methods for additional genetic-based approaches for the study of G. metallireducens.

Geobacter species are important Fe(III) reducers in a diversity of soils and sediments. Mechanisms for Fe(III) oxide reduction have been studied in detail in Geobacter sulfurreducens, but a number of the most thoroughly studied outer surface components of G. sulfurreducens, particularly c-type cytochromes, are not well conserved among Geobacter species. In order to identify cellular components potentially important for Fe(III) oxide reduction in Geobacter metallireducens, gene transcript abundance was compared in cells grown on Fe(III) oxide or soluble Fe(III) citrate with whole-genome microarrays. Outer-surface cytochromes were also identified. Deletion of genes for c-type cytochromes that had higher transcript abundance during growth on Fe(III) oxides and/or were detected in the outer-surface protein fraction identified six c-type cytochrome genes, that when deleted removed the capacity for Fe(III) oxide reduction. Several of the c-type cytochromes which were essential for Fe(III) oxide reduction in G. metallireducens have homologs in G. sulfurreducens that are not important for Fe(III) oxide reduction. Other genes essential for Fe(III) oxide reduction included a gene predicted to encode an NHL (Ncl-1-HT2A-Lin-41) repeat-containing protein and a gene potentially involved in pili glycosylation. Genes associated with flagellum-based motility, chemotaxis, and pili had higher transcript abundance during growth on Fe(III) oxide, consistent with the previously proposed importance of these components in Fe(III) oxide reduction. These results demonstrate that there are similarities in extracellular electron transfer between G. metallireducens and G. sulfurreducens but the outer-surface c-type cytochromes involved in Fe(III) oxide reduction are different.

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