ArticleNature communications2022
Microbial biofilms as living photoconductors due to ultrafast electron transfer in cytochrome OmcS nanowires.
Article in Nature communications, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 62 citations in OpenAlex.
- Wired for life: Intracellular electron nanowires help methane-producing microbes grow.Science advances · 2026Review
- Autonomous Solar Metallurgy for High-Purity Gold Recovery from Electronic Waste.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Silicate-bound iron drives abiotic solar energy conversion in terrestrial environments.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Spatiotemporal organization of membrane protein controls bacterial extracellular electron transfer.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Cross-scale design of abiotic-biotic interfaces for semi-artificial photosynthesis.Chemical science · 2026Review
- The role ofSustainable microbiology · 2026Review
- Implantable Light-Powered Human Designer Cells for Electrical Energy Generation.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2025Article
- Electron shuttling promotes denitrification and mitigates nitrous oxide emissions in lakes.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Influence of support materials on the electroactive behavior, structure and gene expression of wild type and GSU1771-deficient mutant of Geobacter sulfurreducens biofilms.Environmental science and pollution research international · 2025Article
- Bacterial Species in Engineered Living Materials: Strategies and Future Directions.Microbial biotechnology · 2025Review
- A widespread and ancient bacterial machinery assembles cytochrome OmcS nanowires essential for extracellular electron transfer.Cell chemical biology · 2025Article
- Electron transport across the cell envelope via multihemeFrontiers in chemistry · 2025Review
- Cytochrome "nanowires" are physically limited to sub-picoamp currents that suffice for cellular respiration.Frontiers in chemistry · 2025Article
- The Jekyll-and-Hyde electron transfer chemistry of hydrogen bonds.Nature chemistry · 2024Article
- Controlling heme redox properties in peptide amphiphile fibers with sequence and heme loading ratio.Biophysical journal · 2024Article
- Widespread extracellular electron transfer pathways for charging microbial cytochrome OmcS nanowires via periplasmic cytochromes PpcABCDE.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Semi-biological photosystem: harnessing carbon dots andSustainable microbiology · 2024Article
- Microbe-Anode Interactions: Comparing the impact of genetic and material engineering approaches to improve the performance of microbial electrochemical systems (MES).Microbial biotechnology · 2023Review
- Structure of Geobacter cytochrome OmcZ identifies mechanism of nanowire assembly and conductivity.Nature microbiology · 2023Article
- New Perspective on Electron Transfer through Molecules.The journal of physical chemistry letters · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Light-induced microbial electron transfer has potential for efficient production of value-added chemicals, biofuels and biodegradable materials owing to diversified metabolic pathways. However, most microbes lack photoactive proteins and require synthetic photosensitizers that suffer from photocorrosion, photodegradation, cytotoxicity, and generation of photoexcited radicals that are harmful to cells, thus severely limiting the catalytic performance. Therefore, there is a pressing need for biocompatible photoconductive materials for efficient electronic interface between microbes and electrodes. Here we show that living biofilms of Geobacter sulfurreducens use nanowires of cytochrome OmcS as intrinsic photoconductors. Photoconductive atomic force microscopy shows up to 100-fold increase in photocurrent in purified individual nanowires. Photocurrents respond rapidly (<100 ms) to the excitation and persist reversibly for hours. Femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy and quantum dynamics simulations reveal ultrafast (~200 fs) electron transfer between nanowire hemes upon photoexcitation, enhancing carrier density and mobility. Our work reveals a new class of natural photoconductors for whole-cell catalysis.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.