ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbiological Chemistry and Geomicrobiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1621417
This article is part of the Research TopicExtracellular Electron Transfer in MicroorganismsView all articles
Integrated analysis of electrical stimulation effects on Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 inoculated denitrifying community: targeted and untargeted metabolomic analysis of phenazine biosynthesis and quorum sensing
Provisionally accepted
- 1Institute of Energy Research, Jiangxi Academy of Sciences, Nanchang, China
- 2Jiangxi Carbon Neutalization Research Center, Nanchang, China
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This study investigates how 0.8 V applied voltage modulates phenazine biosynthesis, quorum sensing (QS), and microbial interactions in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1-inoculated microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) reactors. Voltage stimulation significantly enhanced phenazine derivatives (PYO: 8.65-fold; 1-OH-PHZ: 14.98-fold) and QS signals (C4-HSL: 2.88-fold; 3-OXO-C12-HSL: 2.21-fold), correlating with upregulated biosynthetic genes (phzG: 14.8-fold; rhlI: 15.2-fold).Electrical stimulation amplified QS cross-regulation, reinforcing Las-mediated positive feedback on Rhl/PQS systems while attenuating Rhl's inhibition of PQS.Untargeted metabolomic analysis demonstrated significant alterations in bacterial metabolic activity under electrical stimulation, identifying 140 differential metabolites. Among these, indole, a signaling molecule with QS-like functionality, exhibited the highest VIP score as an upregulated metabolite, and another indole derivative, brassicanal A, was also elevated. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis highlighted that these metabolites were primarily associated with amino acid metabolism and transport, while anthranilic acid and L-tryptophan-key metabolites linked to both indole-related pathways and phenazine biosynthesis-were also identified.Correlation analysis between differential metabolites with microbial communities confirmed that Delftia and Burkholderiales were strongly associated with phenazine biosynthesis and QS activity in P. aeruginosa PAO1. These findings highlight voltage as a key driver of metabolic rewiring and microbial niche partitioning, optimizing MEC reactor performance for wastewater treatment. This work provides foundational insights into electro-stimulated biofilm engineering through targeted QS and metabolic pathway regulation.
Keywords: Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1, Quorum Sensing, Phenazine derivative, Microbial electrolysis cell, untargeted metabolomic analysis
Received: 01 May 2025; Accepted: 16 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wu, Liu, Deng, Gui and Nie. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Shuanglin Gui, Institute of Energy Research, Jiangxi Academy of Sciences, Nanchang, China
Hanbing Nie, Institute of Energy Research, Jiangxi Academy of Sciences, Nanchang, China
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