Figure 7.

Inhibition of biofilm, cell morphology-related gene expression by PaeCascade-RpoD for enhancing EET efficiency in S. oneidensis MR-1

(A and B) Schematic representation of (A) engineering the thickness and morphology of biofilm by repressing the expression of tviB or tviC, (B) engineering the cell morphology by repressing the expression of ftsZ to enhance the EET efficiency.

(C–E) Targeting sites and corresponding transcriptional inhibition efficiency of (C) tviB, (D) tviC, and (E) ftsZ by qRT-PCR. Transcription levels are normalized to the control strain cr0. Values and error bars indicate mean ± SEM of three replicates. Asterisks mean the strains selected for the bio-electrochemical analysis in microbial fuel cells.

(F–H) The power density output curves obtained by linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) with a scan rate of 0.1 mV/s of (F) tviB, (G) tviC, and (H) ftsZ-repressed strains. cr0 is the control strain. See also Figure S3.

(I) Scanning electron microscope image of the strain cr0 and repressed strain ftsZ (NT1) on anode carbon cloth. Scale bars are 2 μm for low magnification views, and 500 nm for high magnification views.

(J) Bio-image of strain cr0 and the repressed strains tviB (NT1), tviC (NT1), ftsZ (NT1) embedded on anode carbon cloth by CLSM. The number on the right of the biofilm means the bio-image thickness. All scale bars are 50 μm.