A synthetic microbial consortium of Shewanella and Bacillus for enhanced generation of bioelectricity

Abstract

In this study, a synthetic microbial consortium containing exoelectrogen Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 and riboflavin-producing strain, Bacillus subtilis RH33, was rationally designed and successfully constructed, enabling a stable, multiple cycles of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) operation for more than 500 h. The maximum power density of MFCs with this synthetic microbial consortium was 277.4 mW/m , which was 4.9 times of that with MR-1 (56.9 mW/m ) and 40.2 times of RH33 (6.9 mW/m ), separately. At the same time, the Coulombic efficiency of the synthetic microbial consortium (5.6%) was higher than MR-1 (4.1%) and RH33 (2.3%). Regardless the high concentration of riboflavin produced by RH33, the power density of RH33 was rather low. The low bioelectricity generation can be ascribed to the low efficiency of RH33 in utilizing riboflavin for extracellular electron transfer (EET). In the synthetic microbial consortium of MR-1 and RH33, it was found that both mediated and direct electron transfer efficiencies were enhanced. By exchanging the anolyte of MR-1 and RH33, it was confirmed that the improved MFC performance with the synthetic microbial consortium was because MR-1 could efficiently utilize the high concentration of riboflavin produced by RH33. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2017;114: 526-532. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Electroactive microorganisms in bioelectrochemical systems

“…Synthetic engineering can also be used to improve cooperation between different microorganisms. In one example of engineered cooperation, B. subtilis strain RH33 was modified to produce multiple copies of the riboflavin operon 129 , resulting in the accumulation of up to 12 g l −1 riboflavin, which was used as an electron shuttle by S. oneidensis MR-1 for improved current production. This cooperative pair achieved a maximum anodic power density of 277 mW m −2 , which is substantially higher than the powers achieved by either pure culture.…”

Electrochemical Signature of Escherichia coli on Nickel Micropillar Array Electrode for Early Biofilm Characterization

“…[11] It was also shown that Bacillus subtilis RH33 can use riboflavin produced by S. oneidensis MR-1 to enhance EET in synthetic microbial consortia. [12] However, it is still unclear if microbially-produced flavins contribute to EET in cytochrome-bound rather than in free form. [13] These and other examples, recently reviewed by our group [14] suggest that both DET and MET contribute to overall EET in mixed microbial consortia.…”

Synthetic microbiome: When “synthetic biology” meets “microbiomics”

“…除此之外, 也有文献报道利用B. subtilis-S. oneidensis [32] 和S. cerevisiae-S. oneidensis [33] 等双菌株共培养体系组 建的生物电化学系统.…”