Deep-sea methane seeps are amongst the most biologically productive environments on Earth and are often characterised by stable, low oxygen concentrations and microbial communities that couple the anaerobic oxidation of methane to sulfate reduction or iron reduction in the underlying sediment. At these sites, ferrous iron (Fe) can be produced by organoclastic iron reduction, methanotrophic-coupled iron reduction, or through the abiotic reduction by sulfide produced by the abundant sulfate-reducing bacteria at these sites. The prevalence of Fein the anoxic sediments, as well as the availability of oxygen in the overlying water, suggests that seeps could also harbour communities of iron-oxidising microbes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIron is one of the Earth's most abundant elements and is required for essentially all forms of life. Yet, iron's reactivity with oxygen and poor solubility in its oxidized form (Fe) mean that it is often a limiting nutrient in oxic, near-neutral pH environments like Earth's ocean. In addition to being a vital nutrient, there is a diversity of aerobic organisms that oxidize ferrous iron (Fe) to harness energy for growth and biosynthesis.
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December 2023
sp. B1 is a bacterial species isolated from soil highly impacted by perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a family of biopersistent contaminants colloquially known as "forever chemicals." Here, we report the genome of sp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSome bacteria and archaea have evolved the means to use extracellular electron donors and acceptors for energy metabolism, a phenomenon broadly known as extracellular electron transfer (EET). One such EET mechanism is the transmembrane electron conduit MtrCAB, which has been shown to transfer electrons derived from metabolic substrates to electron acceptors, like Fe(III) and Mn(IV) oxides, outside the cell. Although most studies of MtrCAB-mediated EET have been conducted in Shewanella oneidensis MR-1, recent investigations in and species have revealed that the electron-donating proteins that support MtrCAB in are not as representative as previously thought.
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