MICRB311 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Manganese Oxide, Magnetotactic Bacteria, Virulence-Related Outer Membrane Protein Family
11 Jan 2017
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Document Summary
Microorganisms have extensive systems for metal homeostasis. Global effects of microbe-metal interactions: microbes and massive ferromanganese deposits. If you go anywhere there is deserts, you can see iron/ manganese cycling. When the earth was anoxic, the iron was in its soluble reduced form. But as cyanobacteria start producing more oxygen, then. Iron started cycling between oxidized and reduced state. When iron is oxidized, it becomes solid and sediments. Black and red bands are deposits of oxidized iron and manganese minerals as they are going through anoxic/oxic transitions. This is where you would see biofilms of microorgamnisms that use iron oxides as electron acceptors or soluble reduced metals as electron donors. Using manganese as a fuel source is not super advantageous, however we do know that manganese oxide is formed. microbes actually use manganese. Bacillus coating themselves with manganese oxide when they sporulate. Manganese oxide is for them to sink into the bottom in the anoxic region as then they use.
