Independently evolved extracellular electron transfer pathways in ecologically diverse Desulfobacterota.

ABSTRACT: Extracellular electron transfer plays a role in the biogeochemical cycling of carbon, metals, sulfur, and nitrogen, and has wide-ranging biotechnological applications. The metal-reducing (Mtr), outer-membrane cytochrome (Omc), and porin-cytochrome (Pcc) pathways facilitate electron transfer to insoluble electron acceptors via trans-outer membrane cytochrome complexes. Although these pathways perform a similar function, they are phylogenetically unrelated, indicating independent evolutionary origins. Here, we report an extracellular electron transfer mechanism in which the high-current producing bacterium Desulfuromonas acetexigens differentially co-expresses, at transcript and protein levels, the porin-cytochrome, outer-membrane cytochrome, and metal-reducing pathways, along with high-mole

SUBMITTER: Shaw DR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12133095 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature