Observation of polyphosphate granules in cable bacteria

Abstract:

Cable bacteria are long filamentous bacteria that capable for long distance electron transport: transporting electrons derived from oxidizing sulfide in anoxic layers, to oxygen at the sediment surface, over a distance of centimeters. Cable bacteria are found in many types of freshwater and marine sediment all over the world, with density of approximately thousands of kilometers per square meter. These long filaments are composed by individual cells closely related to Desulfobulbaceae, connected with a shared outer membrane inside which the strings structure are presumed to be highly conductive. The observed doubling time of cells within the filament is about 20 min, which is among the shortest compare to other bacteria. In these cable cells, we constantly observed polyphosphate granules (poly-P), regardless of cell dimension and shape. This is very interesting since it has long been recognized that the microbial polyP content is low during rapid growth and increases under unfavorable conditions, for example, increasing sulfide concentration and anoxia resulted in a decomposition of poly-P in Beggiatoa. Here, we investigated marine cable bacteria from Netherland and Aarhus Bay, focusing on the poly-P dynamics under various redox conditions. In poly-P stained cells, typically there are two big poly-P granules locate at each polar. In dividing cells, however, the morphology of poly-P changed to six small granules precisely arranged to two row. Moreover, the cells seem be able to continuously divide more than one time without elongation step. These varied poly-P morphologies demonstrate that poly-P is closely related to the cell growth and cell division, by an unknown mechanism. Individual cable filaments were picked up and were exposed to different redox conditions; our primary data indicated the cable cells could suffer anoxic condition better than oxic condition. We also detected decomposition of poly-P under anoxia. These results call for an in-depth examination for the function of the poly-P granules inside cable bacteria, and indicate poly-P may reflect different physiological and environmental conditions rather than genetic differences.