Bharat Patel Griffith University
| | CONTRIBUTED TALK | | THE LIMITS TO LIFE UNDER DUAL EXTREMITIES OF HIGH TEMPERATURE AND SALINITY | Bharat Patel
| | The most fascinating extreme environment microbes are those that thrive under more than one extreme environmental condition, e.g. the thermohalophiles. Physiological and genomic investigations of a unique thermoactive and haloactive (optimum growth at 60oC and 10% NaCl), anaerobic bacterium, Halothermothrix orenii suggests the existence of a novel halophilic adaptation strategy in this bacterium unlike that found in other halophilic Bacteria and Archaea. This unique strategy enables the bacterium to grow in a moderately saline environment while maintaining its biomolecular structural integrity at elevated temperatures. To date, hyperthermohalophilic microbes which grow at temperatures exceeding 80oC and with salinities of >20% have not been isolated and as an inverse relationship between elevated temperatures and saline concentrations for biomolecular stability exists, it is suggested that life under such dual environmental stresses cannot be easily sustained. |
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