Dataset Information

Molecular dissection of bacterial nanowires.

ABSTRACT: The discovery of bacterial conductive structures, termed nanowires, has intrigued scientists for almost a decade. Nanowires enable bacteria to transfer electrons over micrometer distances to extracellular electron acceptors such as insoluble metal oxides or electrodes. Nanowires are pilus based and in Geobacter sulfurreducens are composed of the type IV pilin subunit PilA. Multiheme c-type cytochromes have been shown to attach to nanowire pili. Two hypotheses have been proposed for electron conduction in nanowires. The first (termed the metal-like conductivity or MLC hypothesis) claims that the pilus itself has the electron-conductive properties and the attached cytochromes mediate transfer to the final electron acceptor, whereas the second hypothesis (termed the superexchange conductivity or SEC hypothesis) suggests that electrons are "hopping" between heme groups in cytochromes closely aligned with the pilus as a scaffold. In their recent article in mBio, Vargas et al. [M. Vargas, N. S. Malvankar, P.-L. Tremblay, C. Leang, J. A. Smith, P. Patel, O. Snoeyenbos-West, K. P. Nevin, and D. R. Lovley, mBio 4(2):e00210-13, 2013] address this ambiguity through an analysis of strain Aro-5, a G. sulfurreducens PilA mutant lacking aromatic residues in the nonconserved portion of PilA. These residues were suspected of involvement in electron transport according to the MLC hypothesis. The G. sulfurreducens mutant had reduced conductive properties, lending important support to the MLC hypothesis. The data also highlight the need for further and more conclusive evidence for one or the other hypothesis.

SUBMITTER: Boesen T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3663193 | biostudies-literature | 2013 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Molecular dissection of bacterial nanowires.

Boesen Thomas T Nielsen Lars Peter LP

mBio 20130507 3

The discovery of bacterial conductive structures, termed nanowires, has intrigued scientists for almost a decade. Nanowires enable bacteria to transfer electrons over micrometer distances to extracellular electron acceptors such as insoluble metal oxides or electrodes. Nanowires are pilus based and in Geobacter sulfurreducens are composed of the type IV pilin subunit PilA. Multiheme c-type cytochromes have been shown to attach to nanowire pili. Two hypotheses have been proposed for electron cond ...[more]

PMID: 23653449

Similar Datasets

Project description:Knowledge about an organismâs cell and tissue-specific transcriptional repertoire is essential for understanding the gene regulatory circuits that control key developmental events. The shoot apical meristem (SAM) is responsible for development of all the above ground parts of plants. Our understanding of SAM at the molecular level is far from complete. The present work investigates the global gene expression repertoire of SAMs in the garden pea (Pisum sativum). To this end, 10,346 EST sequences representing 7611 unique genes were generated from pea SAM cDNA libraries. These sequences, together with previously reported ESTs, were used to construct a 12K oligonucleotide array used to identify genes exhibiting differential SAM expression, as compared to the axillary meristem, root apical meristem, and non-meristematic tissues. We identified a number of genes that are predominantly expressed in specific cell layers or domains of the SAM, and thus are likely components of the gene networks involved in stem cell maintenance and initiation of lateral organ primordial cells. In situ hybridization confirmed the spatial localisation of some of these key genes within the SAM. Our data also indicate the diversification of some gene expression patterns and functions in legume crop plants. RNA samples were hybridized to two-colour Combimatrix arrays manufactured with a custom library of 11958 probes. The limma software package for R (Smyth, 2005) was used in subsequent statistical analysis of the data generated. On examination of the data during quality control assessment, it became evident that the Cy3 channel showed little dynamic range and background correction and normalisation could not correct for this. Therefore only the Cy5 channel was used in the subsequent analysis. This resulted in somewhat unbalanced sample sizes with six replicates of SAM and one each of RAM, AM and NM. Nevertheless, linear modelling and empirical Bayes moderated t-statistics (Smyth, 2004) used in the statistical analysis allows variance information to be borrowed across both samples and genes, resulting in reliable statistical inference even for the groups with only one sample.

Dataset Information

Molecular dissection of bacterial nanowires.

Publications

Molecular dissection of bacterial nanowires.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets