Scientists from Yale University and the Nova University of Lisbon have published a study in Nature Communications that reveals an underground electrical network powered by bacteria under our feet. And the person responsible is none other than a protobacterium, the … Geobacter sulfurreducens, specialized in surviving in extreme conditions, where oxygen is scarce or practically non-existent. This bacteria uses external filaments, known as nanowires, that shoot out from the surface of the microbe, to release excess electrons into its environment. In the manner of an underground electrical network that connects with other microorganisms that surround it.
Geobacter sulfurreducens and its nanowires
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To answer how this burst of electrons is possible, the authors of the study point to proteins called cytochromes. They are what provide the electrical impulse necessary to release the electrons. Nikhil Malvankar, a professor at the Yale Institute of Microbial Sciences, and Carlos Salgueiro, a senior lecturer at NOVA-FCT, have extensively studied the components of this microbial electrical network.
However, it was not clear until now How bacteria could transmit excess electrons produced by metabolic activity to nanowires that project from its surface and connect with neighboring minerals or organisms. They discovered that many types of soil bacteria rely on a single, widespread family of cytochromes within their bodies to charge the nanowires.
Malvankar and Salgueiro have clarified that these proteins, in essence, act like plugs which power these nanowires to create a natural electrical grid deep within the Earth, allowing many types of microbes to survive and sustain life. And connect to them by electromagnetismcreating a connected biological network.
“Our studies help solve a long-standing mystery about how various soil and marine microbes proliferate in diverse environments by performing extracellular electron transfer at remarkably fast rates of million electrons per second», write the authors.
Furthermore, understanding the bioelectrical properties of these bacteria, according to scientists, may be fundamental for the development of biomaterials, new technological applications or to combat climate change.
Salgueiro and Malvankar specify that microbes absorb 80% of the ocean’s methane, a major contributor to global warming, emitted from the ocean floor. However, microbes on the Earth’s surface represent the 50% of methane emissions into the atmosphere. Therefore, better understanding the metabolic processes of these microorganisms would allow the development of strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
