Electron flow in multiheme bacterial cytochromes is a balancing act between heme electronic interaction and redox potentials.

ABSTRACT: The naturally widespread process of electron transfer from metal reducing bacteria to extracellular solid metal oxides entails unique biomolecular machinery optimized for long-range electron transport. To perform this function efficiently, microorganisms have adapted multiheme c-type cytochromes to arrange heme cofactors into wires that cooperatively span the cellular envelope, transmitting electrons along distances greater than 100 Å. Implications and opportunities for bionanotechnological device design are self-evident. However, at the molecular level, how these proteins shuttle electrons along their heme wires, navigating intraprotein intersections and interprotein interfaces efficiently, remains a mystery thus far inaccessible to experiment. To shed light on this critical topic, we car

SUBMITTER: Breuer M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3896160 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature