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

一笔赠款已授予格雷戈里·蔡库斯博士和约翰·W·密歇根州立大学的一项倡议，建立一个海洋沉积物中微生物亲电体的观测站。 该研究的目标是富集，分离和表征微生物种群，这些微生物种群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天然能源中发电。 新型的生物电化学反应器系统含有专门设计的金属石墨电极，将充满沉积物和氧化还原电位将仔细控制的恒电位仪。 孵育2-5周后，将通过高通量rDNA测序和显微镜分析阴极或阳极表面生长的细菌种群。 然后，将从生物膜中分离出新的亲阴极菌和亲阳极菌，并对其进行微生物学鉴定，以验证亲电菌是微生物多样性的重要组成部分这一假设，以及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。 由于缺乏适当的富集和分离技术，大多数极端多样性的微生物尚未被发现，这在一定程度上是本项目所提供的。 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，或用于化学品，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.