title: Thermally activated long range electron transport in living biofilms.
abstract: Microbial biofilms grown utilizing electrodes as metabolic electron acceptors or donors are a new class of biomaterials with distinct electronic properties. Here we report that electron transport through living electrode-grown Geobacter sulfurreducens biofilms is a thermally activated process with incoherent redox conductivity. The temperature dependency of this process is consistent with electron-transfer reactions involving hemes of c-type cytochromes known to play important roles in G. sulfurreducens extracellular electron transport. While incoherent redox conductivity is ubiquitous in biological systems at molecular-length scales, it is unprecedented over distances it appears to occur through living G. sulfurreducens biofilms, which can exceed 100 microns in thickness.
authors.affiliation: Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375, USA. tender@nrl.navy.mil.
authors.forename: Matthew D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Yates
authors.forename: Joel P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Golden
authors.forename: Jared
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Roy
authors.forename: Sarah M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Strycharz-Glaven
authors.forename: Stanislav
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tsoi
authors.forename: Jeffrey S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Erickson
authors.forename: Mohamed Y
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: El-Naggar
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Calabrese Barton
authors.forename: Leonard M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Tender
mesh_terms: D018441:Biofilms; D004553:Electric Conductivity; D004579:Electron Transport; D045302:Geobacter / Q000378:metabolism; D013696:Temperature