Halobacteria require high NaCl concentrations for growth and are the dominant inhabitants of hypersaline environments above 15% NaCl. They are well-documented to be highly recombinogenic, both in frequency and in the range of exchange partners. In this study, we examine the genetic and genomic variation of cultured, naturally co-occurring environmental populations of Halobacteria. Sequence data...

BACKGROUND Prior research on the microorganisms associated with the brine shrimp, Artemia franciscana, has mainly been limited to culture-based identification techniques or feeding studies for aquaculture. Our objective was to identify bacteria and archaea associated with Artemia adults and encysted embryos to understand the role of microbes in the Artemia life cycle and, therefore, their impor...

The haloarchaeal diversity of four hypersaline alkaline lakes from the Wadi El-Natrun depression (Northern Egypt) was investigated using culture-independent polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) 16S rRNA gene phylotypes, which combined with remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) data to highlight distribution pattern microbial in water sedi...

Orexin/hypocretin neurons have a crucial role in the regulation of sleep and wakefulness. Recent optogenetic studies revealed that the activation or inhibition of orexin neuronal activity affects the probability of sleep/wakefulness transition in the acute phase. To expand our understanding of how orexin neurons maintain wakefulness, we generated new transgenic mice in which orexin neurons expr...

Some of the most commonly occurring but difficult to isolate halophilic prokaryotes, Archaea as well as Bacteria, require or prefer pyruvate as carbon and energy source. The most efficient media for the enumeration and isolation of heterotrophic prokaryotes from natural environments, from freshwater to hypersaline, including the widely used R2A agar medium, contain pyruvate as a key ingredient....