Microbial biofilms as living photoconductors due to ultrafast electron transfer in cytochrome OmcS nanowires

Jens Neu (), Catharine C. Shipps, Matthew J. Guberman-Pfeffer, Cong Shen, Vishok Srikanth, Jacob A. Spies, Nathan D. Kirchhofer, Sibel Ebru Yalcin, Gary W. Brudvig, Victor S. Batista and Nikhil S. Malvankar ()
Additional contact information
Jens Neu: Yale University
Catharine C. Shipps: Yale University
Matthew J. Guberman-Pfeffer: Yale University
Cong Shen: Yale University
Vishok Srikanth: Yale University
Jacob A. Spies: Yale University
Nathan D. Kirchhofer: Oxford Instruments Asylum Research
Sibel Ebru Yalcin: Yale University
Gary W. Brudvig: Yale University
Victor S. Batista: Yale University
Nikhil S. Malvankar: Yale University

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Light-induced microbial electron transfer has potential for efficient production of value-added chemicals, biofuels and biodegradable materials owing to diversified metabolic pathways. However, most microbes lack photoactive proteins and require synthetic photosensitizers that suffer from photocorrosion, photodegradation, cytotoxicity, and generation of photoexcited radicals that are harmful to cells, thus severely limiting the catalytic performance. Therefore, there is a pressing need for biocompatible photoconductive materials for efficient electronic interface between microbes and electrodes. Here we show that living biofilms of Geobacter sulfurreducens use nanowires of cytochrome OmcS as intrinsic photoconductors. Photoconductive atomic force microscopy shows up to 100-fold increase in photocurrent in purified individual nanowires. Photocurrents respond rapidly (

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32659-5 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-32659-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-32659-5

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().