About this Research Topic

Background

Extremely halophilic archaea (salt-loving archaea), termed haloarchaea, constitute one of the largest groups within the Archaea and inhabit the most hypersaline environments on Earth. Due to their easy cultivation in the laboratory and rapid growth kinetics, haloarchaea are excellent models for studying cell biology of Archaea. Research into haloarchaea have enabled tremendous progress in various areas of archaeal biology including genetic evolution, gene expression and regulation, protein synthesis and adaptation, structural dynamics, and various biotechnological applications. The detailed investigation of survival and adaptation mechanisms of haloarchaea to high salt environments have provided key insights into the boundaries of life, improving our knowledge on life evolution on Earth and expanding the realms possible for the search for extraterrestrial life.

Although the mechanisms behind salt adaptation of haloarchaea at molecular, cellular, metabolic, and physiological levels have raised much interest, they are still far from being completely understood. The continuing interest in haloarchaea has driven the development of molecular genetic tools, functional genomics and proteomics, and imaging protocols. Given the current known abundance of diversity of haloarchaea and the complex adaptive mechanisms, the application of genetics, ‘omics’ strategies, and advanced microscopy techniques in haloarchaea will help to comprehensively investigate the molecular and physiological mechanisms of adaptation in response to environmental stimuli or perturbations and thereby advance the understanding on haloarchaeal biology and physiology.

This Research Topic welcomes Original Research, Methods, Review, Mini Review, Perspectives, Hypothesis and Theory, and Technology and Code articles on the following, but not limited to, subtopics:

• The development of genetic tools of haloarchaea, including new genetic markers, shuttle/cloning vectors, reporter genes and promoters, and efficient gene manipulation systems (genome scale mutant libraries, CRISPR-Cas mediated genome editing etc).

• The application of “omics” technologies (including genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics) to investigate DNA replication and repair, transcription machinery, protein synthesis and adaptation, metabolic pathways.

• Using advanced imaging techniques to study the cell morphology and structural dynamics of haloarchaea and provide new knowledge about how haloarchaeal cells organise their internal cellular components in space and time.

• Biotechnological applications of haloarchaea.

Keywords: Haloarchaea, Genetics, Omics technologies, Cell Shape, Structural dynamics

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