Characterizing Electron Transport through Living Biofilms

Here we demonstrate the method of electrochemical gating used to characterize electrical conductivity of electrode-grown microbial biofilms under physiologically relevant conditions.(1) These measurements are performed on living biofilms in aqueous medium using source and drain electrodes patterned on a glass surface in a specialized configuration referred to as an interdigitated electrode (IDA) array. A biofilm is grown that extends across the gap connecting the source and drain. Potentials are applied to the electrodes (E-S and E-D) generating a source-drain current (I-SD) through the biofilm between the electrodes. The dependency of electrical conductivity on gate potential (the average of the source and drain potentials, E-G = [E-D + E-S]/2) is determined by systematically changing the gate potential and measuring the resulting source-drain current. The dependency of conductivity on gate potential provides mechanistic information about the extracellular electron transport process underlying the electrical conductivity of the specific biofilm under investigation. The electrochemical gating measurement method described here is based directly on that used by M. S. Wrighton(2,3) and colleagues and R. W. Murray(4,5,6) and colleagues in the 1980's to investigate thin film conductive polymers.