Looking for Rhodoferax Ferrireducens

[Jeremiah Blondin]

I am about to perform an experiment to investigate the evolution of the nervous system from single-celled, electrically active eukaryotes.  Because prokaryotes are easier to work with I want to start with bacteria.  The idea is to culture E. Coli and R. Ferrireducens together in a solution of glucose and iron oxide.  R. Ferrireducens can not break down glucose in the absence of soluble FE3 so it will depend on the siderophores produced by the E. Coli to break down the iron oxide.  My hypothesis is that the R. Ferrireducens will reach a state of symbiosis with the E. Coli.  The resulting culture should have electrically active and non-electrically active portions, producing a demonstration of how electrical action potential evolves for reasons other than signaling and is then "repurposed" as a thinking apparatus over time.  It's easy to get E. Coli but the R. Ferrireducens has been more of a problem.  I know that there are various sorts of geobacters in river mud throughout America so if all I needed was bacteria that holds a charge I could get that from a river here in California, but R. Ferrireducens has been experimentally verified to be unable to break down glucose without FE3, making it a perfect candidate for this experiment.  Problem is that R. Ferrireducens only occurs naturally on the east coast and the best deal I've been able to find online is $356 for a sample.  Do any of you know of A) a west coast analogue to R. Ferrireducens that shares it's limitations in breaking down glucose, or B) a cheaper source of R. Ferrireducens that can be purchased online or somewhere in southern California?

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

ATCC has it for $295 for non-profits:

http://www.atcc.org/ATCCAdvancedCatalogSearch/ProductDetails/tabid/452/Default.aspx?ATCCNum=BAA-621&Template=bacteria

I searched all the educational suppliers I know of, but none seem to carry this one - sorry...

Patrik

[Jeremiah Blondin]

Yeah.  This one is pretty rare.  I think it's because everyone's in a race to see who can make the first functional bacterial power cell and become millionaires lol.  Kind of screws those of us who are really just interested in scientific inquiry.  I guess I'm going back to studying slime mold for the time being.  :-p