Anodic Respiration of Vibrio natriegens in a Bioelectrochemical System

Vibrio natriegens promises to be a new standard biotechnological working organism since it grows extraordinarily fast, its productivity surpasses E. coli by far, and genomic tools are getting readily available. Recent studies provided insights into its extracellular electron transfer pathway, revealing it to be similar to other well-known electroactive organisms. Therefore, we aimed to show for the first time that V. natriegens donates electrons from its metabolism to an electrode by direct contact as well as via an artificial redox mediator. Our results demonstrate current densities up to 196 & mu;A cm(-2) using an artificial mediator. Via direct electron transfer, 6.6 & mu;A cm(-2) were achieved within the first 24 h of cultivation. In the mediated system, mainly formate, acetate, and succinate were produced from glucose. These findings favor V. natriegens over established electroactive organisms due to its superior electron-transfer capabilities combined with an outstanding metabolism.

Automated summary

Vibrio natriegens shows great potential as a biotechnological organism due to its fast growth, high productivity, and availability of genomic tools. It was found that V. natriegens possesses a similar extracellular electron transfer pathway as other electroactive organisms. This study demonstrated for the first time that V. natriegens can transfer electrons to an electrode through direct contact and an artificial redox mediator, highlighting its superior electron-transfer capabilities and metabolism.