10. Gold Bacteria

Haiku for D. Acidovorans

Sewage to gold,
Like an alchemist of old,
Fingerprints from Midas.

Dr. JeM YinJoy

How to pronounce Delftia acidovorans.
Delftia acidovorans is pronounced “Delft-ee-ya Acid-OH-vor-annes”

The Spiritual Significance

Like a King Midas of fairytale lore, D. acidovorans indulges in the luxury of sleeping on golden beds and swimming in a golden sea.
In ancient times, gold symbolized the sun. And since early mythologies considered the sun to be equivalent to a powerful heavenly being, gold was considered akin to divinity.
Since its discovery before written history, gold has been a symbol of wealth, of status and of superior accomplishments. It has been crafted into ornaments to decorate the bodies and possessions of royalty and the wealthy of all nations, and has been mixed with other metals to hone swords. Throughout history, golden coins, statues, and jewelry filled the coffers and adorned the halls of the affluent.
And in our modern times, awards for athletic to artistic accomplishments are plated in gold and the modern day wealth is still defined by this sun-hued, iconic metal.
Whether it is a bright yellow or a deeper toned golden luster, this crystalline substance is not marred by acid, and yet, it is one of the most malleable metals known to humans. It has been used as the gold standard in monetary policy and also has useful applications in medicine and technology.
Why would a tiny microbe care so much about this status symbol of wealth and power, that it creates a specialized molecule to capture gold ions into its net?
The microbe is a teacher after all, and its lesson is this.
It creates the gold deposits it’s known for, by protecting itself from the toxic effects of the gold ion, which it encounters by wagging its way through the oceans and rivers of the world, in which vast quantities of dissolved gold are in too dilute a form to be practically mined.
In keeping itself free from all desire for the gold, by protecting itself from this symbol of wealth, the microbe teaches that when greed is abandoned, the side effect of this virtuous path is that of unexpected and resplendent abundance.

The Microbiology

Delftia acidovorans is a bacterium that, together with another bacterium, produces gold nuggets.
Shape and size
Delftia acidovorans is a Gram-negative non-spore-forming, aerobic rod-shaped bacterium. They are motile by means of polar or bipolar tufts of one to five flagella.
Habitat
Delftia acidovorans (strain DSM 14801 / SPH-1) is a non-halophilic aerobic Gram-negative bacterium isolated from soil enriched with acetamide in Delft (Netherlands). This organism is found in soil, sediment, activated sludge, crude oil, water, and various clinical samples. It has been shown to degrade a number of organic compounds
Delftia acidovorans is also frequently found on the surface of tiny gold nuggets, leading microbiologists to discover that it was creating the particles from soluble gold – ions of gold that are dissolved in water.
Since soluble gold is toxic, a molecule excreted by the microbe both protects the organism and transforms the toxic ions into particles.
This molecule that allows D. acidovorans to accomplish this feat of alchemy is called delftibactin, which is a type of metallophore, a chemical that can complex metals.
Gold complexation by delftibactin leads to the creation of nontoxic solid gold particles.