Das Lehrgebiet BioVT veröffentlicht im Journal MicrobiologyOpen die Publikation "Towards bioprocess engineering of cable bacteria: Establishment of a synthetic sediment".
Cable bacteria, which grow in multicellular filaments, are found in most freshwater and marine sediments and can transport electrons over centimeter-long distances. Their ability to fix CO2 and the highest conductivity described to date for biological materials make them promising microorganisms for bioprocess engineering with e. g. a possible electrochemical application. However, cable bacteria are so far cultivated on their natural sediment, which restricts their use for production processes. Thus, this work uses the approach to design a synthetic sediment based on IC data of natural sediments in combination with known requirements described in literature. The influence of different bentonite concentrations on water retention was investigated as well as the impact of different sands. For the first time cultivation of cable bacteria on synthetic sediment was successfully established, which was shown for the freshwater strain Candidatus Electronema aureum GS. Cultivation was carried out for ten weeks in a developed sediment bioreactor, with an increasing cable bacteria density in the sediment and growth to a depth of 5 cm. The development of the synthetic sediment enables the cultivation of cable bacteria under reproducible conditions and, for example, a future scale-up of processes using readily available components.
Judith Stiefelmaier, Joshua Keller, Wiebke Neupert, Roland Ulber; Towards bioprocess engineering of cable bacteria: Establishment of a synthetic sediment; MicrobiologyOpen (2024) im Druck