ReviewTrends in microbiology2023
Microbial nanowires: type IV pili or cytochrome filaments?
Review in Trends in microbiology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 54 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Electroactive Microbiomes: Electron Transfer Mechanisms and Environmental Biotechnology Applications.Environmental microbiology reports · 2026Review
- Structures of the Xcp and Hxc T2SS endopili provide new insights into type IV pili subfamilies.Structure (London, England : 1993) · 2026Article
- Visualization of Type IV Pili: Linking Structural Architecture, Dynamic Function, and Translational Opportunities.Biology · 2026Review
- Ultrastructural and atomic characterization of biofilm-associated extracellular filaments in Shewanella oneidensis MR-1.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Structural determinants of endopilus assembly, stability and functional specificity in bacterial type II secretion.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Cytochrome nanowires under electron microscopy.Emerging topics in life sciences · 2026Review
- Article
- A family of tubular pili from harmful algal bloom forming cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Crucial roles of intracellular cyclic di-GMP in impacting the genes important for extracellular electron transfer byApplied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Physical communication pathways in bacteria: an extra layer to quorum sensing.Biophysical reviews · 2025Review
- A widespread and ancient bacterial machinery assembles cytochrome OmcS nanowires essential for extracellular electron transfer.Cell chemical biology · 2025Article
- Electron transfer in multicentre redox proteins: from fundamentals to extracellular electron transfer.Bioscience reports · 2025Review
- Electron transport across the cell envelope via multihemeFrontiers in chemistry · 2025Review
- Tight-packing of large pilin subunits provides distinct structural and mechanical properties for theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Membrane platform protein PulF of themBio · 2024Article
- NonelectroactiveISME communications · 2024Article
- Tad and toxin-coregulated pilus structures reveal unexpected diversity in bacterial type IV pili.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Structure of a heteropolymeric type 4 pilus from a monoderm bacterium.Nature communications · 2023Article
- The evolution of archaeal flagellar filaments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
A dynamic field of study has emerged involving long-range electron transport by extracellular filaments in anaerobic bacteria, with Geobacter sulfurreducens being used as a model system. The interest in this topic stems from the potential uses of such systems in bioremediation, energy generation, and new bio-based nanotechnology for electronic devices. These conductive extracellular filaments were originally thought, based upon low-resolution observations of dried samples, to be type IV pili (T4P). However, the recently published atomic structure for the T4P from G. sulfurreducens, obtained by cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), is incompatible with the numerous models that have been put forward for electron conduction. As with all high-resolution structures of T4P, the G. sulfurreducens T4P structure shows a partial melting of the α-helix that substantially impacts the aromatic residue positions such that they are incompatible with conductivity. Furthermore, new work using high-resolution cryo-EM shows that conductive filaments thought to be T4P are actually polymerized cytochromes, with stacked heme groups forming a continuous conductive wire, or extracellular DNA. Recent atomic structures of three different cytochrome filaments from G. sulfurreducens suggest that such polymers evolved independently on multiple occasions. The expectation is that such polymerized cytochromes may be found emanating from other anaerobic organisms.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.