SGER: Microbial Observatories: Initiation of a Microbial Observatory for Anaerobic Electrophiles in Marine Sediments

博士们已获得一笔赠款。密歇根州立大学的j·格雷戈里·泽库斯和约翰·w·厄本斯建立了一个海洋沉积物中亲电微生物观测站。这项研究的目标是丰富、分离和表征微生物种群，这些微生物既可以作为电子供体在电力上生长，也可以从沉积物中发现的自然能源中发电。含有特殊设计的金属-石墨电极的新型生物电化学反应器系统将充满沉积物，氧化还原电位将由恒电位器仔细控制。在2-5周的培养后，将通过高通量rDNA测序和显微镜分析在阴极或阳极表面生长的细菌种群。然后，从生物膜中分离出新的亲阴极和亲阳极菌，并对其进行微生物学表征。他们正在测试这样一种假设：亲电试剂是微生物多样性的重要组成部分，根据富集过程中使用的阳极或阴极的确切电位，将存在不同的种群。由于缺乏合适的富集和分离技术，大多数极端多样性的微生物尚未被发现，而这在一定程度上是该项目将提供的。这些研究可能会发现重要的新微生物，用于燃料电池、废物处理发电，或用于化学物质、药物和燃料的生物电合成。

A grant has been awarded to Drs. J. Gregory Zeikus and John W. Urbance of Michigan State University to establish an observatory for microbial electrophiles in marine sediments. The goals of the research are to enrich, isolate, and characterize the microbial populations that can either grow on electricity as the electron donor or generate electricity from natural energy sources found in sediments. Novel bioelectrochemical reactor systems containing specially designed metal-graphite electrodes will be filled with sediment and the redox potential will be carefully controlled by a potentiostat. After 2-5 weeks of incubations, the bacterial populations grown on the cathode or anode surfaces will be analyzed by high throughput rDNA sequencing and microscopy. Then, novel cathodophile and anodophiles will be isolated from the biofilms and characterized microbiologically.They are testing the hypothesis that electrophiles are an important part of microbial diversity and that, based on the exact potential of the anode or cathode used in the enrichments, different populations will exist. Most of the extreme diversity of microbes has gone undiscovered because of lack of suitable enrichment and isolation techniques, which in part this project will provide. These studies may discover important new microbes for use in fuel cells, generation of electricity from waste treatment, or for the bioelectrosynthesis of chemicals, drugs, and fuels.