Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2006 Jul 25;103(30):11358-63.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.0604517103. Epub 2006 Jul 18.

Electrically conductive bacterial nanowires produced by Shewanella oneidensis strain MR-1 and other microorganisms

Yuri A Gorby  1 , Svetlana Yanina, Jeffrey S McLean, Kevin M Rosso, Dianne Moyles, Alice Dohnalkova, Terry J Beveridge, In Seop Chang, Byung Hong Kim, Kyung Shik Kim, David E Culley, Samantha B Reed, Margaret F Romine, Daad A Saffarini, Eric A Hill, Liang Shi, Dwayne A Elias, David W Kennedy, Grigoriy Pinchuk, Kazuya Watanabe, Shun'ichi Ishii, Bruce Logan, Kenneth H Nealson, Jim K Fredrickson
Affiliations

Electrically conductive bacterial nanowires produced by Shewanella oneidensis strain MR-1 and other microorganisms

Yuri A Gorby et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 produced electrically conductive pilus-like appendages called bacterial nanowires in direct response to electron-acceptor limitation. Mutants deficient in genes for c-type decaheme cytochromes MtrC and OmcA, and those that lacked a functional Type II secretion pathway displayed nanowires that were poorly conductive. These mutants were also deficient in their ability to reduce hydrous ferric oxide and in their ability to generate current in a microbial fuel cell. Nanowires produced by the oxygenic phototrophic cyanobacterium Synechocystis PCC6803 and the thermophilic, fermentative bacterium Pelotomaculum thermopropionicum reveal that electrically conductive appendages are not exclusive to dissimilatory metal-reducing bacteria and may, in fact, represent a common bacterial strategy for efficient electron transfer and energy distribution.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts declared.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Wild-type strain MR-1 taken from an electron-acceptor-limited chemostat operating at low agitation (50 rpm). (A) SEM image of MRI. (B) Epifluorescence micrograph of MR-1 stained with the fluorescent nonspecific protein-binding stain NanoOrange in liquid medium.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
STM images of isolated nanowires from wild-type MR-1, with lateral diameter of 100 nm and a topographic height of between 5 and 10 nm. (A) Arrows indicate the location of a nanowire and a step on the graphite substrate. (B) Higher magnification showing ridges and troughs running along the long axis of the structures.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Transmission EM images of whole mounts of MR-1 cells incubated in an aqueous suspension of Si-HFO. The Si-HFO was transformed to nanocrystalline magnetite along extracellular features consistent with the dimensions of nanowires.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
SEM and STM images of nanowires produced by cyanobacteria and methanogenic cocultures. (A) SEM image of Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 cultivated with CO2 limitation and excess light. (B) STM imagery confirms that the extracellular appendages produced under these conditions are highly electrically conductive, with morphological similarities to nanowires produced by S. oneidensis MR-1. (C) SEM image of P. thermopropionicum and M. thermoautotrophicus (arrow) in methanogenic cocultures showing nanowires connecting the two genera, as reported by Ishii et al. (12). (D) STM images confirm that these nanowires are highly conductive and composed of bundles of individual filaments.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Nealson K. H., Saffarini D. Annu. Rev. Microbiol. 1994;48:311–343. - PubMed
    1. Nealson K. H., Belz A., McKee B. Antonie Leeuwenhoek Int. J. Gen. Mol. Microbiol. 2002;81:215–222. - PubMed
    1. Lovley D. R., Coates J. D., Blunt-Harris E. L., Phillips E. J. P., Woodward J. C. Nature. 1996;382:445–448.
    1. Newman D. K., Kolter R. Nature. 2000;405:94–97. - PubMed
    1. Leang C., Coppi M. V., Lovley D. R. J. Bacteriol. 2003;185:2096–2103. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types