Engineering bacteria to control electron transport altering the synthesis of non-native polymer

Abstract

The use of bacteria as catalysts for radical polymerisations of synthetic monomers has recently been established. However, the role of trans Plasma Membrane Electron Transport (tPMET) in modulating these processes is not well understood. We sort to study this by genetic engineering a part of the tPMET system NapC in E. coli. We show that this engineering altered the rate of extracellular electron transfer coincided with an effect on cell-mediated polymerisation using a model monomer. A plasmid with arabinose inducible PBAD promoters were shown to upregulate NapC protein upon induction at total arabinose concentrations of 0.0018% and 0.18%. These clones (E. coli_{(IP_0.0018%)} and E. coli_{(IP_0.18%)}, respectively) were used in iron-mediated atom transfer radical polymerisation (Fe ATRP), affecting the nature of the polymerisation, than cultures containing suppressed or empty plasmids (E. coli_{(IP_S)} and E. coli_(E), respectively). These results lead to the hypothesis that EET (Extracellular Electron Transfer) in part modulates cell instructed polymerisations.