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Geobacter sulfurreducens  is commonly employed as a model for the study of extracellular electron transport mechanisms in the  Geobacter  species. Deletion of  pilB , which is known to encode the pilus assembly motor protein for type IV pili in other bacteria, has been proposed as an effective strategy for evaluating the role of electrically conductive pili (e-pili) in  G. sulfurreducens  extracellular electron transfer. In those studies, the inhibition of e-pili expression associated with  pilB  deletion was not demonstrated directly but was inferred from the observation that  pilB  deletion mutants produced lower current densities than wild-type cells. Here, we report that deleting  pilB  did not diminish current production. Conducting probe atomic force microscopy revealed filaments with the same diameter and similar current-voltage response as e-pili harvested from wild-type  G. sulfurreducens  or when e-pili are expressed heterologously from the  G. sulfurreducens  pilin gene in  Escherichia coli . Immunogold labeling demonstrated that a  G. sulfurreducens  strain expressing a pilin monomer with a His tag continued to express His tag-labeled filaments when  pilB  was deleted. These results suggest that a reinterpretation of the results of previous studies on  G. sulfurreducens   pilB  deletion strains may be necessary.   IMPORTANCE   Geobacter sulfurreducens  is a model microbe for the study of biogeochemically and technologically significant processes, such as the reduction of Fe(III) oxides in soils and sediments, bioelectrochemical applications that produce electric current from waste organic matter or drive useful processes with the consumption of renewable electricity, direct interspecies electron transfer in anaerobic digestors and methanogenic soils and sediments, and metal corrosion. Elucidating the phenotypes associated with gene deletions is an important strategy for determining the mechanisms for extracellular electron transfer in  G. sulfurreducens . The results reported here demonstrate that we cannot replicate the key phenotype reported for a gene deletion that has been central to the development of models for long-range electron transport in  G. sulfurreducens .

Generation of High Current Densities in Geobacter sulfurreducens Lacking the Putative Gene for the PilB Pilus Assembly Motor