characterizing-electron-transport-through-living-biofilms

Characterizing Electron Transport through Living Biofilms

Here we demonstrate the method of electrochemical gating used to characterize electrical conductivity of electrode-grown microbial biofilms under ...

Naval Research Laboratory

George Mason University

Microbial biofilms grown utilizing electrodes as metabolic electron acceptors or donors are a new class of biomaterials with distinct electronic properties. Here we report that electron transport through living electrode-grown Geobacter sulfurreducens biofilms is a thermally activated process with incoherent redox conductivity. The temperature dependency of this process is consistent with electron-transfer reactions involving hemes of c-type cytochromes known to play important roles in G. sulfurreducens extracellular electron transport. While incoherent redox conductivity is ubiquitous in biological systems at molecular-length scales, it is unprecedented over distances it appears to occur through living G. sulfurreducens biofilms, which can exceed 100 microns in thickness. 

Jared Roy

Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering

Naval Research Laboratory

Characterizing Electron Transport through Living Biofilms

Jared Roy

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Naval Research Laboratory

Characterizing Electron Transport through Living Biofilms

Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering