Geobacter sulfurreducens

A metal-reducing bacterium and the model organism for research on extracellular electron transfer — the ability of a microbe to move electrons from inside the cell onto external acceptors (minerals, electrodes) across distances far larger than a single cell. It is the organism at the center of the long-running dispute over what its conductive "nanowires" actually are: PilA-based conductive pili (the original e-pili model) or polymerized multi-heme cytochrome filaments (the current leading structural model). Matters to this vault as the anchor of its electromicrobiology thread and a foil to cable bacteria, whose distinct non-redox nickel-wire mechanism it is repeatedly contrasted against.

References

• claim-lovley-2005-proposed-geobacter-nanowires-are-conductive-pili
• claim-geobacter-conductive-filaments-are-omcs-cytochrome-polymers
• claim-geobacter-pili-are-secretory-pseudopili-not-nanowires
• claim-malvankar-lab-overturned-pili-model-without-lovley
• claim-2024-paper-disputes-geobacter-cytochrome-nanowire-conductivity
• claim-cable-bacteria-conduct-through-nickel-protein-wire (contrasting organism/mechanism)