{"id":11872,"date":"2010-10-12T12:20:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-12T19:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/microbial-hair-its-electric\/"},"modified":"2023-04-19T11:22:45","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T18:22:45","slug":"microbial-hair-its-electric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/news\/stories\/microbial-hair-its-electric\/","title":{"rendered":"Microbial Hair: It&#8217;s Electric"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n    \n            \n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--article-hero \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--article-hero\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n<div class=\"inner-wrapper\">\n  \n  \n  <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n          <nav aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\" class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n        <ul>\n                      <li><a href=\"\/news\/stories\/\">News<\/a><\/li>\n                      <li><a href=\"\/news\/stories\/\/?category=faculty\">Faculty<\/a><\/li>\n                  <\/ul>\n      <\/nav>\n    \n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--page-title\">\n\n    \n  <h1>Microbial Hair: It&#8217;s Electric<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n    \n          <div class=\"subtitle\">\n            \n<div class=\"f--field f--description\">\n\n    \n  Specialized bacterial filaments shown to conduct electricity.\n\n\n<\/div>\n      <\/div>\n    \n           <strong class=\"author-field\"><span >By<\/span><a href=\"mailto:communication@dornsife.usc.edu\">Carl Marziali<\/a><\/strong>\n    \n          <span class=\"post-date-field\">October 12, 2010<\/span>\n      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--social-share \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--social-share\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n  <div class=\"content-wrapper\">\n    <span class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list\" 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fill-rule=\"evenodd\" transform=\"translate(-6 -9)\"\/><\/svg>\n            <\/span>\n            <span class=\"a2a_label visually-hidden\">Email<\/span>\n          <\/a>\n                  <\/span>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n  \n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--rich-text \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--rich-text\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n      \n<div class=\"f--field f--wysiwyg\">\n\n    \n  <p><div class=\"video-embed\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Uo4Se5SQypc\" title=\"YouTube video player\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>Some bacteria grow electrical hair that lets them link up in big biological circuits, according to a USC College biophysicist and his collaborators.<\/p>\n<p>The finding suggests that microbial colonies may survive, communicate and share energy in part through electrically conducting hairs known as bacterial nanowires.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;This is the first measurement of electron transport along biological nanowires produced by bacteria,&rdquo; said Mohamed El-Naggar, assistant professor of physics and astronomy in USC College.<\/p>\n<p>El-Naggar was the lead author of a study appearing online in <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing how microbial communities thrive is the first step in finding ways to destroy harmful colonies, such as biofilms on teeth. Biofilms have proven highly resistant to antibiotics.<\/p>\n<p>The same knowledge could help to promote useful colonies, such as those in bacterial fuel cells under development at USC and other institutions.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The flow of electrons in various directions is intimately tied to the metabolic status of different parts of the biofilm,&rdquo; El-Naggar said. &ldquo;Bacterial nanowires can provide the necessary links &hellip; for the survival of a microbial circuit.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>A bacterial nanowire looks like a long hair sticking out of a microbe&rsquo;s body. Like human hair, it consists mostly of protein.<\/p>\n<div style=\"border-width: 0px; padding-left: 120px; padding-bottom: 5px; width: 350px; padding-top: 0px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/migration-uploads\/hair3-803.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\"><br \/><span class=\"caption\"> <\/span><\/div>\n<p>To test the conductivity of nanowires, the researchers grew cultures of <em>Shewanella oneidensis MR-1<\/em>, a microbe previously discovered by co-author Kenneth Nealson, the Wrigley Professor of Geobiology at USC College.<\/p>\n<p><em>Shewanella<\/em> tend to make nanowires in times of scarcity. By manipulating growing conditions, the researchers produced bacteria with plentiful nanowires.<\/p>\n<p>The bacteria then were deposited on a surface dotted with microscopic electrodes. When a nanowire fell across two electrodes, it closed the circuit, enabling a flow of measurable current. The conductivity was similar to that of a semiconductor &ndash; modest but significant.<\/p>\n<p>When the researchers cut the nanowire, the flow of current stopped.<\/p>\n<p>Previous studies showed that electrons could move across a nanowire, which did not prove that nanowires conducted electrons along their length.<\/p>\n<p>El-Naggar&rsquo;s group is the first to carry out this technically difficult but more telling experiment.<\/p>\n<p>Electricity carried on nanowires may be a lifeline. Bacteria respire by losing electrons to an acceptor &ndash; for <em>Shewanella<\/em>, a metal such as iron. (Breathing is a special case: Humans respire by giving up electrons to oxygen, one of the most powerful electron acceptors.)<\/p>\n<p>Nealson said of <em>Shewanella<\/em>: &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t give it an electron acceptor, it dies. It dies pretty rapidly.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>In some cases, a nanowire may be a microbe&rsquo;s only means of dumping electrons.<\/p>\n<p>When an electron acceptor is scarce nearby, nanowires may help bacteria to support each other and extend their collective reach to distant sources.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers noted that <em>Shewanella<\/em> attach to electron acceptors as well as to each other, forming a colony in which every member should be able to respire through a chain of nanowires.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;This would be basically a community response to transfer electrons,&rdquo; El-Naggar explained. &ldquo;It would be a form of cooperative breathing.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>El-Naggar and his team are among the pioneers in a young discipline. The term &ldquo;bacterial nanowire&rdquo; was coined in 2006. Fewer than 10 studies on the subject have been published, according to co-author Yuri Gorby of The J. Craig Venter Institute in San Diego, discoverer of nanowires in <em>Shewanella<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Gorby and others became interested in nanowires when they noticed that reduction of metals appeared to be occurring around the filaments. Since reduction requires the transfer of electrons to a metal, the researchers suspected that the filaments were carrying a current.<\/p>\n<p>Nanowires also have been proposed as conductive pathways in several diverse microbes.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The current hypothesis is that bacterial nanowires are in fact widespread in the microbial world,&rdquo; El-Naggar said.<\/p>\n<p>Some have suggested that nanowires may help bacteria to communicate as well as to respire.<\/p>\n<p>Bacterial colonies are known to share information through the slow diffusion of signaling molecules. Nealson argued that electron transport over nanowires would be faster and preferable for bacteria.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;You want the telegraph, you don&rsquo;t want smoke signals,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Bacteria&rsquo;s communal strategy for survival may hold lessons for higher life forms.<\/p>\n<p>In an op-ed published in Wiredin 2009, Gorby wrote: &ldquo;Understanding the strategies for efficient energy distribution and communication in the oldest organisms on the planet may serve as useful analogies of sustainability within our own species.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>In addition to El-Naggar, Gorby and Nealson, the study&rsquo;s authors were Thomas Yuzvinsky of USC College; Greg Wanger of The J. Craig Venter Institute; and Kar Man Leung, Gordon Southam, Jun Yang and Woon Ming Lau from the University of Western Ontario.<\/p>\n<p>Funding for the research came from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Legler-Benbough Foundation, the J. Craig Venter Institute, the Canadian Natural Science and Engineering Research Council, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Surface Science Western.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Specialized bacterial filaments shown to conduct electricity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1590,117,642,1793,1819,205,93,216],"class_list":["post-11872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty","tag-bacteria","tag-biology","tag-biophysics","tag-magazine","tag-mohamed-el-naggar","tag-nanowires","tag-physics","tag-physics-and-astronomy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Microbial Hair: It&#039;s 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