PLoS ONE (Jan 2013)

Engineering PQS biosynthesis pathway for enhancement of bioelectricity production in pseudomonas aeruginosa microbial fuel cells.

  • Victor Bochuan Wang,
  • Song-Lin Chua,
  • Bin Cao,
  • Thomas Seviour,
  • Victor J Nesatyy,
  • Enrico Marsili,
  • Staffan Kjelleberg,
  • Michael Givskov,
  • Tim Tolker-Nielsen,
  • Hao Song,
  • Joachim Say Chye Loo,
  • Liang Yang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0063129
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 5
p. e63129

Abstract

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The biosynthesis of the redox shuttle, phenazines, in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, an ubiquitous microorganism in wastewater microflora, is regulated by the 2-heptyl-3,4-dihydroxyquinoline (PQS) quorum-sensing system. However, PQS inhibits anaerobic growth of P. aeruginosa. We constructed a P. aeruginosa strain that produces higher concentrations of phenazines under anaerobic conditions by over-expressing the PqsE effector in a PQS negative ΔpqsC mutant. The engineered strain exhibited an improved electrical performance in microbial fuel cells (MFCs) and potentiostat-controlled electrochemical cells with an approximate five-fold increase of maximum current density relative to the parent strain. Electrochemical analysis showed that the current increase correlates with an over-synthesis of phenazines. These results therefore demonstrate that targeting microbial cell-to-cell communication by genetic engineering is a suitable technique to improve power output of bioelectrochemical systems.