BPS2026 – Spatiotemporal organization of membrane protein for bacterial extracellular electron transfer

Extracellular electron transfer (EET) is essential for electroactive microbes’ physiology and biotechnological applications. Many such microbes are gram-negative bacteria, in which EET must cross two membranes and the periplasm, necessitating collaborations of various EET proteins across different cellular compartments. Using single-molecule/single-cell-level fluorescence microscopy equipped with (photo) electrochemical manipulations, I discovered that in Shewanella oneidensis , the inner-membrane electron-transfer hub protein CymA showed spatial reorganization and how such spatial dynamics affect in enabling EET. In this talk, I will discuss how these spatial dynamics enable EET, the underlying mechanisms, and the nature of spatial organization in bacterial EET. These orchestrated spatiotemporal protein behaviors in accomplishing cell function could have broad relevance to the roles of biomolecular condensates in biology.