RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Tailored extracellular electron transfer pathways enhance the electroactivity of Escherichia coli
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.08.28.458029
DO 10.1101/2021.08.28.458029
A1 Mouhib, Mohammed
A1 Reggente, Melania
A1 Li, Lin
A1 Schuergers, Nils
A1 Boghossian, Ardemis A.
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/08/28/2021.08.28.458029.abstract
AB Extracellular electron transfer (EET) engineering in Escherichia coli holds great potential for bioremediation, energy and electrosynthesis applications fueled by readily available organic substrates. Due to its vast metabolic capabilities and availability of synthetic biology tools to adapt strains to specific applications, E. coli is of advantage over native exoelectrogens, but limited in electron transfer rates. We enhanced EET in engineered strains through systematic expression of electron transfer pathways differing in cytochrome composition, localization and origin. While a hybrid pathway harboring components of an E. coli nitrate reductase and the Mtr complex from the exoelectrogen Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 enhanced EET, the highest efficiency was achieved by implementing the complete Mtr pathway from S. oneidensis MR1 in E. coli. We show periplasmic electron shuttling through overexpression of a small tetraheme cytochrome to be central to the electroactivity of this strain, leading to enhanced degradation of the pollutant methyl orange and significantly increased electrical current to graphite electrodes.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.