Bacterial nanowire mystery solved

Nanowires project from bacteria to facilitate transfer of electrons Credit: Yale University

These nanowires enable the bacteria to perform environmentally important functions such as cleaning up radioactive sites and generating electricity. Scientists have long known that Geobacter make conductive nanowires – 1/100,000 the width of a human hair – but to date no one had discovered what they are made of and why they are conductive.

A new study by researchers at Yale, University of Virginia and the University of California at Irvine published April 4 in the journal Cell reveals a surprise: the protein nanowires have a core of metal-containing molecules called hemes.

Previously nobody suspected such a structure. Using high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy, the researchers were able to see the nanowire's atomic structure and discover that hemes line up to create a continuous path along which electrons travel.

“This study solves a longstanding mystery of how nanowires move electrons to minerals in the soil,” said lead author Nikhil Malvankar, assistant professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale and a faculty member at the Microbial Sciences Institute.

“It is possible we could use these wires to connect cells to electronics to build new types of materials and sensors.”

###

Edward Egelman of Virginia and Allon Hochbaum of UC-Irvine are other senior authors. Fengbin Wang of Virginia and Yale's Yangqi Gu and are co-first authors. Other authors are Yale's Patrick O'Brien, Sophia Yi, Sibel Ebru Yalcin, Vishok Srikanth, Cong Shen, Dennis Vu and UC Irvine's Nicole Ing.

Media Contact

Bill Hathaway EurekAlert!

All latest news from the category: Life Sciences and Chemistry

Articles and reports from the Life Sciences and chemistry area deal with applied and basic research into modern biology, chemistry and human medicine.

Valuable information can be found on a range of life sciences fields including bacteriology, biochemistry, bionics, bioinformatics, biophysics, biotechnology, genetics, geobotany, human biology, marine biology, microbiology, molecular biology, cellular biology, zoology, bioinorganic chemistry, microchemistry and environmental chemistry.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors