Endogenous phenazine antibiotics promote anaerobic survival of Pseudomonas aeruginosa via extracellular electron transfer.

Antibiotics are increasingly recognized as having other, important physiological functions for the cells that produce them. An example of this is the effect that phenazines have on signaling and community development for Pseudomonas aeruginosa (L. E. Dietrich, T. K. Teal, A. Price-Whelan, and D. K. Newman, Science 321:1203-1206, 2008). Here we show that phenazine-facilitated electron transfer to poised-potential electrodes promotes anaerobic survival but not growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14 under conditions of oxidant limitation. Other electron shuttles that are reduced but not made by PA14 do not facilitate survival, suggesting that the survival effect is specific to endogenous phenazines.