Rhodopseudomonas palustris is a rod-shaped, Gram-negative purple nonsulfur bacterium, notable for its ability to switch between four different modes of metabolism.

[2] R. palustris is found extensively in nature, and has been isolated from swine waste lagoons, earthworm droppings, marine coastal sediments, and pond water.

This metabolic versatility has raised interest in the research community, and it makes this bacterium suitable for potential use in biotechnological applications.

R. palustris can deftly acquire and process various components from its environment, as necessitated by fluctuations in the levels of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and light.

R. palustris also has genes that encode for the protein ruBisCO, an enzyme necessary for carbon dioxide fixation in plants and other photosynthetic organisms.

In addition, this bacterium can combine oxygen-sensitive and oxygen-requiring enzyme reaction processes for metabolism, thus it can thrive under varying and even very little levels of oxygen.

[2] The potential to manipulate R. palustris to be used as a reliable hydrogen production source or for biodegradation still lacks detailed knowledge of its metabolic pathways and regulation mechanisms.

A strain of R. palustris (DX-1) is one of the few microorganisms and the first Alphaproteobacteria found to generate electricity at high power densities in low-internal resistance microbial fuel cells (MFCs).

The ability of TIE-1 to use electricity can be used to manufacture batteries, but its efficiency as a fuel source remains questionable, but it has possible applications in the pharmaceutical industry.