Advances in Halophilic Microorganisms

A special issue of Microorganisms (ISSN 2076-2607). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Microbiology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 December 2024 | Viewed by 925

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Centro de Investigación en Biotecnología de la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Av. Universidad 1001, Cuernavaca 62209, Morelos, Mexico
Interests: fungi; molecular biology; extremophile; halophile

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Halophilic microorganisms refer to a type of extremophile microbe that thrives in highly saline environments, represented by archaea, bacteria, and eukaryotes such as fungi. High salinity is an extreme environment that relatively few organisms can adapt to and survive. Mainly, they have different osmotic adaptation strategies to survive in such harsh conditions. The habitat diversity of halophilic microorganisms in hypersaline systems provides information about the evolution of life on Earth. However, more findings are needed to understand the role of halophilic microorganisms in hypersaline environments, their adaptation to these environmental conditions, their genetic and functional diversity, and their phylogenetic position.

For this Special Issue of Microorganisms, we invite you to submit research articles, review articles, brief notes, and communications related to halophilic microorganisms, including, but not limited to, bacteria, fungi, microalgae, and archaea. We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Maria del Rayo Sanchez-Carbente
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • halophilic
  • microbe
  • extremophiles
  • biotechnology
  • taxonomy and biodiversity

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 2363 KiB  
Article
A Haloarchaeal Transcriptional Regulator That Represses the Expression of CRISPR-Associated Genes
by Israela Turgeman-Grott, Yarden Shalev, Netta Shemesh, Rachel Levy, Inbar Eini, Metsada Pasmanik-Chor and Uri Gophna
Microorganisms 2024, 12(9), 1772; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms12091772 - 27 Aug 2024
Viewed by 715
Abstract
Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas (CRISPR-associated proteins) systems provide acquired heritable protection to bacteria and archaea against selfish DNA elements, such as viruses. These systems must be tightly regulated because they can capture DNA fragments from foreign selfish elements, and also [...] Read more.
Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas (CRISPR-associated proteins) systems provide acquired heritable protection to bacteria and archaea against selfish DNA elements, such as viruses. These systems must be tightly regulated because they can capture DNA fragments from foreign selfish elements, and also occasionally from self-chromosomes, resulting in autoimmunity. Most known species from the halophilic archaeal genus Haloferax contain type I-B CRISPR-Cas systems, and the strongest hotspot for self-spacer acquisition by H. mediterranei was a locus that contained a putative transposable element, as well as the gene HFX_2341, which was a very frequent target for self-targeting spacers. To test whether this gene is CRISPR-associated, we investigated it using bioinformatics, deletion, over-expression, and comparative transcriptomics. We show that HFX_2341 is a global transcriptional regulator that can repress diverse genes, since its deletion results in significantly higher expression of multiple genes, especially those involved in nutrient transport. When over-expressed, HFX_2341 strongly repressed the transcript production of all cas genes tested, both those involved in spacer acquisition (cas1, 2 and 4) and those required for destroying selfish genetic elements (cas3 and 5–8). Considering that HFX_2341 is highly conserved in haloarchaea, with homologs that are present in species that do not encode the CRISPR-Cas system, we conclude that it is a global regulator that is also involved in cas gene regulation, either directly or indirectly. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Halophilic Microorganisms)
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