Lanxiang Tian

Reduced Efficiency of Magnetotaxis in Magnetotactic Coccoid Bacteria in Higher than Geomagnetic Fields

Magnetotactic bacteria are microorganisms that orient and migrate along magnetic field lines. The classical model of polar magnetotaxis predicts that the field-parallel migration velocity of magnetotactic bacteria increases monotonically with the strength of an applied magnetic field. We here test this model experimentally on magnetotactic coccoid bacteria that swim along helical trajectories. It turns out that the contribution of the field-parallel migration velocity decreases with increasing field strength from 0.1 to 1.5 mT. This unexpected observation can be explained and reproduced in a mathematical model under the assumption that the magnetosome chain is inclined with respect to the flagellar propulsion axis. The magnetic disadvantage, however, becomes apparent only in stronger than geomagnetic fields, which suggests that magnetotaxis is optimized under geomagnetic field conditions. It is therefore not beneficial for these bacteria to increase their intracellular magnetic dipole moment beyond the value needed to overcome Brownian motion in geomagnetic field conditions.

Does capillary racetrack-based enrichment reflect the diversity of uncultivated magnetotactic cocci in environmental samples?

The racetrack-based PCR approach is widely used in phylogenetic analysis of magnetotactic bacteria (MTB), which are isolated from environmental samples using the capillary racetrack method. To evaluate whether the capillary racetrack-based enrichment can truly reflect the diversity of MTB in the targeted environmental sample, phylogenetic diversity studies of MTB enriched from the Miyun lake near Beijing were carried out, using both the capillary racetrack-based PCR and a modified metagenome-based PCR approach. Magnetotactic cocci were identified in the studied sample using both approaches. Comparative studies showed that three clusters of magnetotactic cocci were revealed by the modified metagenome-based PCR approach, while only one of them (e.g. MYG-22 sequence) was detected by the racetrack-based PCR approach from the studied sample. This suggests that the result of capillary racetrack-based enrichment might have been biased by the magnetotaxis of magnetotactic bacteria. It appears that the metagenome-based PCR approach better reflects the original diversity of MTB in the environmental sample.

Magnetic characterization of noninteracting, randomly oriented, nanometer-scale ferrimagnetic particles

determined by AC susceptibility is (9.2 ± 7.9) × 10 10 Hz. The extrapolated Mrs/Ms and Bcr/Bc at 0 K are 0.5 and 1.12, respectively, suggesting that the ferrimagnetic HFn cores are dominated by uniaxial anisotropy. The calculated effective magnetic anisotropy energy constant Keff =1 .2 ×1 0 5 J/m 3 , which is larger than previously reported values for bulk magnetite and/or maghemite or magnetoferritin and is attributed to the effect of surface anisotropy. These data provide useful insights into superparamagnetism as well as biomineralization of ultrafine ferrimagnetic particles.

Enhanced magnetic resonance imaging and staining of cancer cells using ferrimagnetic H-ferritin nanoparticles with increasing core size

Purpose This study is to demonstrate the nanoscale size effect of ferrimagnetic H-ferritin (M-HFn) nanoparticles on magnetic properties, relaxivity, enzyme mimetic activities, and application in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and immunohistochemical staining of cancer cells. Materials and methods M-HFn nanoparticles with different sizes of magnetite cores in the range of 2.7–5.3 nm were synthesized through loading different amounts of iron into recombinant human H chain ferritin (HFn) shells. Core size, crystallinity, and magnetic properties of those M-HFn nanoparticles were analyzed by transmission electron microscope and low-temperature magnetic measurements. The MDA-MB-231 cancer cells were incubated with synthesized M-HFn nanoparticles for 24 hours in Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium. In vitro MRI of cell pellets after M-HFn labeling was performed at 7 T. Iron uptake of cells was analyzed by Prussian blue staining and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Immunohistochemical staining by using the peroxidase-like activity of M-HFn nanoparticles was carried out on MDA-MB-231 tumor tissue paraffin sections. Results The saturation magnetization (Ms), relaxivity, and peroxidase-like activity of synthesized M-HFn nanoparticles were monotonously increased with the size of ferrimagnetic cores. The M-HFn nanoparticles with the largest core size of 5.3 nm exhibit the strongest saturation magnetization, the highest peroxidase activity in immunohistochemical staining, and the highest r2 of 321 mM−1 s−1, allowing to detect MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells as low as 104 cells mL−1. Conclusion The magnetic properties, relaxivity, and peroxidase-like activity of M-HFn nanoparticles are size dependent, which indicates that M-HFn nanoparticles with larger magnetite core can significantly enhance performance in MRI and staining of cancer cells.

Combined Approaches for Characterization of an Uncultivated Magnetotactic coccus from Lake Miyun near Beijing

This paper reports the features of an as yet uncultivated magnetotactic coccus, named MYC-1, recently found from surface sediments of Lake Miyun near Beijing. Light microscope and Bacteriodrome analyses demonstrate that MYC-1 is north-seeking in the Earths magnetic field. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) attached with energy-dispersive X-ray analyses reveal that this coccus contains a single chain of magnetosomes, containing approximately 10 large iron-oxide crystals. Morphology of these crystals is featured by prism with a mean length and width of 117 nm and 95 nm (statistics from 281 crystals), respectively; it yields an aspect factor of 1.24. A linear relationship (r2 = 0.83) clearly exists between the length and width of crystals. In agreement with previous results, we observed that the size distribution of the MYC-1 is distinctly asymmetric with cut off toward larger sizes, which is the opposite of non-biogenic crystals. Low-temperature magnetic measurements on bulk bacteria samples show a distinct Verwey transition temperature (Tv) around 115 K indicative of magnetite, thus the magnetosomes contain magnetite. For a field of 0.5 mT, we determined a swimming speed of approximately 141 μ m/s for the MYC-1. Furthermore, the magnetic moment estimated from the rotating magnetic field method is 1.8 × 10−15 Am2 per cell. Finally, this finding of freshwater magnetotactic coccus in Lake Miyun suggests that magnetite produced by the MYC-1 strain is a potentially important remanence carrier in these lake sediments.

Bats Respond to Very Weak Magnetic Fields

How animals, including mammals, can respond to and utilize the direction and intensity of the Earth’s magnetic field for orientation and navigation is contentious. In this study, we experimentally tested whether the Chinese Noctule, Nyctalus plancyi (Vespertilionidae) can sense magnetic field strengths that were even lower than those of the present-day geomagnetic field. Such field strengths occurred during geomagnetic excursions or polarity reversals and thus may have played an important role in the evolution of a magnetic sense. We found that in a present-day local geomagnetic field, the bats showed a clear preference for positioning themselves at the magnetic north. As the field intensity decreased to only 1/5th of the natural intensity (i.e., 10 μT; the lowest field strength tested here), the bats still responded by positioning themselves at the magnetic north. When the field polarity was artificially reversed, the bats still preferred the new magnetic north, even at the lowest field strength tested (10 μT), despite the fact that the artificial field orientation was opposite to the natural geomagnetic field (P<0.05). Hence, N. plancyi is able to detect the direction of a magnetic field even at 1/5th of the present-day field strength. This high sensitivity to magnetic fields may explain how magnetic orientation could have evolved in bats even as the Earth’s magnetic field strength varied and the polarity reversed tens of times over the past fifty million years.