The Shewanella Federation is a multi-investigator and cross-institutional consortium formed to characterize and model the biology of the metabolically versatile bacterium Shewanella oneidensis MR-1.

The ability of S.oneidensis MR-1 to grow both aerobically and anaerobically utilizing a diversity of electron acceptors (nitrite, nitrate, thiosulfate, iron, manganese, uranium) presents a unique opportunity to investigate how environmental conditions alter the biology and ecology of a microorganism.

Part of the Microbial Cell Project component of the OBER Genomes to Life Program, this federation brings together the diversity of scientific expertise necessary to understand the biology of a microorganism at a whole-system level.

A complete genome sequence of S.oneidensis MR-1, obtained under the Microbial Genome Project of the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (OBER) of the US Department of Energy, provides the genomic parts list necessary to perform high-throughput systems-level biological research.

Technologies including whole-genome DNA microarrays, Fourier-transform ion cyclotron mass spectroscopy, and high-throughput two-dimensional electrophoresis will be used to characterize the transcriptome and proteome of S.oneidensis MR-1 under a variety of controlled environmental conditions.

Whole-genome phage-display will be used to define protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions involved in gene regulation; advanced microscopic imaging techniques will be used to localize the proteins within cellular structures.

Information gathered from these systems-level investigations will be used to model cellular-networks to construct a computation model predicting the biology of S.oneidensis MR-1.

The Shewanella Federation is funded by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (OBER) of the US Department of Energy.