Following iron speciation in the early stages of magnetite magnetosome biomineralization

Understanding magnetosome magnetite biomineralization is of fundamental interest to devising the strategies for bioinspired synthesis of magnetic materials at the nanoscale. Thus, we investigated the early stages of magnetosome formation in this work and correlated the size and emergent crystallinity of magnetosome nanoparticles with the changes in chemical environment of iron and oxygen by utilizing advanced analytical electron microscopy techniques. We observed that magnetosomes in the early stages of biomineralization with the sizes of 5-10 nm were amorphous, with a majority of iron present as Fe³⁺, indicative of ferric hydroxide. The magnetosomes with intermediate sizes showed partially crystalline structure with a majority of iron present as Fe³⁺ and trace amounts of Fe²⁺. The fully maturated magnetosomes were indexed to magnetite. Our approach provides spatially resolved structural and chemical information of individual magnetosomes with different particle sizes, attributed to magnetosomes at different stages of biomineralization.