Biomineralization of Iron Sulfides in Magnetotactic Bacteria from Sulfidic Environments

Magnetotactic bacteria contain intracellular iron mineral inclusions termed magnetosomes (Balkwill et al., 1980) which impart a permanent magnetic dipole moment to the cell resulting in its alignment and navigation in magnetic fields (Blakemore, 1975, 1982; Frankel, 1984). Various methods have been used to determine the mineral phase of the magnetosomes including Mossbauer spectroscopy, x-ray powder diffraction, selected area/micro-electron diffraction, and energy dispersive x-ray analysis (Frankel et al., 1979; Towe and Moench, 1981; Sparks et al., 1990). The particles in almost all magnetotactic bacteria have been shown to consist of the mineral magnetite (Fe3O4) (Frankel et al., 1979; Towe and Moench, 1981; Matsuda et al., 1983; Mann et al., 1987; Bazylinski et al., 1988), sometimes admixed with hydrous ferric oxide, a precursor to Fe3O4 precipitation (Frankel et al., 1983; Bazylinski et al., 1988).

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