Defining Rules of Anaerobic Biofilm Architecture
Abstract
In nature, communities of organisms collaborate to carry out complex reactions, making them dependent upon direct associations that are lost in monoculture laboratory studies. The recent discovery of interspecies electron transfer revealed a fundamentally new process linking microbial communities that places different constraints on how organisms interact within biofilms. Our goal is to decode how this electrical communication creates the microbial community architecture observed in anaerobic environments. While many examples of single species producing or consuming electrons are known, we have developed a new multi-species model system to simultaneously control the metabolic, genetic, and ecological conditions that influence the electrical interactions between microbial species.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- May 05, 2022
- Source ID
- W911NF2210074
Entities
People
- Jeffrey A Gralnick
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- United States Army
- University of Minnesota