posted on 2023-01-03, 15:07authored byYi-Nan Liu, Zhen-Ting Lv, Wen-Li Lv, Dong-Feng Liu, Xian-Wei Liu
Measurement of electron transfer at the single-particle
or -cell
level is crucial to the in situ study of basic chemical
and biological processes. However, it remains challenging to directly
probe the microbial extracellular electron transfer process due to
the weakness of signals and the lack of techniques. Here, we present
a label-free and noninvasive imaging method that is able to measure
the electron transfer in microbial cells. We measured the extracellular
electron transfer processes by imaging the redox reaction of c-type outer membrane cytochromes in microbial cells using
a plasmonic imaging technique, and obtained the electrochemical activity
parameters (formal potential and number of electrons transferred)
of multiple individual microbial cells, allowing for unveiling ample
heterogeneities in electron transfer at the single-cell level. We
anticipate that this method will contribute to the study of electron
transfer in various biological and chemical processes.