The objective of the proposed research is to study the genetic basis of neutrophilic microbial iron oxidation to elucidate its relation to iron oxyhydroxide biomineralization and develop a means to monitor biological iron oxidation in the environment. This work will involve annotating one of the first available genomes of aerobic neutrophilic iron oxidizer and identifying components of the iron oxidation electron transport and polysaccharide synthesis pathways using geonomic analysis and protein isolation and characterization techniques.
