ArticleBMC biology2023
Guanine crystal formation by bacteria.
Article in BMC biology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Biosynthesis and Genetic Tuning of Guanine Crystals via Metabolic Engineering of Yeast.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Article
- Functional abiotic metabolite assembly hypothesis for the early events in the origin of life.Nature communications · 2026Review
- Control Strategies in Guanine Biocrystallization.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Review
- The Role of Confinement in Biomineralization.Chemical reviews · 2025Review
- Underlying charge-transfer mechanism of visible light emission in guanine crystals.Communications chemistry · 2025Article
- Purine Molecular Interactions Determine Anisotropic Shape of Zebrafish Biogenic Crystals.Small methods · 2025Article
- Specialized molecular pathways drive the formation of light-scattering assemblies in leucophores.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Genetic control over biogenic crystal morphogenesis in zebrafish.Nature chemical biology · 2025Article
- Guanine crystal formation by the unicellular organism Phacotus lenticularis is part of a cellular stress response.PloS one · 2025Article
- Meeting report: 400 synthetic biology projects promote sustainable development.Sustainable microbiology · 2025Article
- The rise and fall of adenine clusters in the gas phase: a glimpse into crystal growth and nucleation.Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry · 2024Article
- Structure Determination of Biogenic Crystals Directly from 3D Electron Diffraction Data.Crystal growth & design · 2024Article
- Biomineralization and Properties of Guanine Crystals.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundGuanine crystals are organic biogenic crystals found in many organisms. Due to their exceptionally high refractive index, they contribute to structural color and are responsible for the reflective effect in the skin and visual organs in animals such as fish, reptiles, and spiders. Occurrence of these crystals in animals has been known for many years, and they have also been observed in eukaryotic microorganisms, but not in prokaryotes.
resultsIn this work, we report the discovery of extracellular crystals formed by bacteria and reveal that they are composed of guanine monohydrate. This composition differs from that of biogenic guanine crystals found in other organisms, mostly composed of β anhydrous guanine. We demonstrate the formation of these crystals by Aeromonas and other bacteria and investigate the metabolic traits related to their synthesis. In all cases studied, the presence of the bacterial guanine crystals correlates with the absence of guanine deaminase, which could lead to guanine accumulation providing the substrate for crystal formation.
conclusionsOur finding of the hitherto unknown guanine crystal occurrence in prokaryotes extends the range of organisms that produce these crystals to a new domain of life. Bacteria constitute a novel and more accessible model to study the process of guanine crystal formation and assembly. This discovery opens countless chemical and biological questions, including those about the functional and adaptive significance of their production in these microorganisms. It also paves the road for the development of simple and convenient processes to obtain biogenic guanine crystals for diverse applications.
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