Selenium respiration in anaerobic bacteria: Does energy generation pay off?

Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry
Lucian C Staicu, Larry L Barton

Abstract

Selenium (Se) respiration in bacteria was revealed for the first time at the end of 1980s. Although thermodynamically-favorable, energy-dense and documented in phylogenetically-diverse bacteria, this metabolic process appears to be accompanied by a number of challenges and numerous unanswered questions. Selenium oxyanions, SeO42- and SeO32-, are reduced to elemental Se (Se0) through anaerobic respiration, the end product being solid and displaying a considerable size (up to 500 nm) at the bacterial scale. Compared to other electron acceptors used in anaerobic respiration (e.g. N, S, Fe, Mn, and As), Se is one of the few elements whose end product is solid. Furthermore, unlike other known bacterial intracellular accumulations such as volutin (inorganic polyphosphate), S0, glycogen or magnetite, Se0 has not been shown to play a nutritional or ecological role for its host. In the context of anaerobic respiration of Se oxyanions, biogenic Se0 appears to be a by-product, a waste that needs proper handling, and this raises the question of the evolutionary implications of this process. Why would bacteria use a respiratory substrate that is useful, in the first place, and then highly detrimental? Interestingly, in certain artificial ec...Continue Reading

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