Halovirus is a major force that affects the evolution of extreme halophiles and the biogeochemistry of hypersaline environments. However, until now, the systematic studies on the halovirus ecology and the effects of salt concentration on virus-host systems are lacking. To provide more valuable information for understanding ecological strategies of a virus-host system in the hypersaline ecosyste...

From salt flats on the Galapagos Islands, two strains of a red photosynthetic bacterium were isolated and identified as Ectothiorhodospira mobilis, an organism first described by Pelsh in 1937. The cells are curved in a short spiral, 0.7 to 1.0 mu wide and 2.0 to 4.8 mu long. They are motile by a polar tuft of flagella. Cells contain several large stacks of lamellar membranes, carrying the pigm...

The halobacterial transducer of sensory rhodopsin II (HtrII) is a photosignal transducer associated with phototaxis in extreme halophiles. The HAMP domain, a linker domain in HtrII, is considered to play an important role in transferring the signal from the membrane to the cytoplasmic region, although its structure in the complex remains undetermined. To establish the structural basis for under...

The Cuatro Cienegas basin (Coahuila, México) is a composite of different water systems in the middle of the desert with unusually high levels of endemism and diversity in different taxa. Although the diversity of macrobiota has been well described, little is known about the diversity and distribution of microorganisms in the oligotrophic ponds. Here we describe the extent and distribution of di...

Polyadenylation is a process common to almost all organisms. In eukaryotes, stable poly(A)-tails, important for mRNA stability and translation initiation, are added to the 3' ends of most mRNAs. Contrarily, polyadenylation can stimulate RNA degradation, a phenomenon witnessed in prokaryotes, organelles and recently, for nucleus-encoded RNA as well. Polyadenylation takes place in hyperthermophil...

The hyperthermophilic, facultatively heterotrophic crenarchaeum Thermoproteus tenax was analyzed using a low-coverage shotgun-sequencing approach. A total of 1.81 Mbp (representing 98.5% of the total genome), with an average gap size of 100 bp and 5.3-fold coverage, are reported, giving insights into the genome of T. tenax. Genome analysis and biochemical studies enabled us to reconstruct its c...

A few extremely halophilic Archaea (Halobacterium salinarum, Haloquadratum walsbyi, Haloferax mediterranei, Halorubrum vacuolatum, Halogeometricum borinquense, Haloplanus spp.) possess gas vesicles that bestow buoyancy on the cells. Gas vesicles are also produced by the anaerobic endospore-forming halophilic Bacteria Sporohalobacter lortetii and Orenia sivashensis. We have extensive information...

Members of the family Halobacteriaceae in the domain Archaea are obligate extreme halophiles. They occupy a variety of hypersaline environments, and their cellular biochemistry functions in a nearly saturated salty milieu. Despite extensive study, a detailed analysis of their growth kinetics is missing. To remedy this, Arrhenius plots for 14 type species of the family were generated. These orga...

Halophiles are in all three domains of life: Archaea, Bacteria and Eucarya. Halophilic microorganisms in addition to form major part of life biodiversity can have many biotechnological applications. The objective of this research is isolation and identification of halophilic bacteria from Urmia Lake in Iran and the study of its bacterial biodiversity. After sampling of brines from Urmia Lake fr...

Strains with 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) deaminase activity can cause plant growth on stress condition. In the presence of bacteria with the ability of ACC deaminase production in the rhizosphere, it is possible to convert the ethylene precursor (ACC) to α-ketobutyrate  and ammonium, reducing the ethylene levels in host plants. In order to measure the power and level of A...