Not-So-Large Charge: Deep-Sea Microbes Directly Consume Electricity

Abstract

The bacterium Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans can thrive on electrons obtained directly from an electrode when its usual energy source—iron—is unavailable. This switch from using an inorganic element to consuming electricity itself as a source of electrons “demonstrates a previously unknown bioenergetic versatility,” say Ryuhei Nakamura of the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science in Saitama, Japan, and his collaborators. Thus, electrons might be a primary energy source for these bacteria while dwelling within the deep-sea hydrothermal ecosystems in which they are found, they point out. Details appeared in the September 2015 Frontiers in Microbiology (doi:10.3389/fmicb.2015.00994).