Projects / Programmes
Extremophiles as a source of novel bioactive substances
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 1.05.00 |
Natural sciences and mathematics |
Biochemistry and molecular biology |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| P310 |
Natural sciences and mathematics |
Proteins, enzymology |
| P320 |
Natural sciences and mathematics |
Nucleic acids, protein synthesis |
| P340 |
Natural sciences and mathematics |
Lipids, steroids, membranes |
| B002 |
Biomedical sciences |
Biophysics |
| B230 |
Biomedical sciences |
Microbiology, bacteriology, virology, mycology |
| B260 |
Biomedical sciences |
Hydrobiology, marine biology, aquatic ecology, limnology |
extremophilic microorganism, archaea, halophilic, thermophilic, biodiversity, thermal stability, thermozymes, biotechnology
Researchers (15)
Organisations (2)
Abstract
Biodiversity: Extremophilic microorganisms are adopted to survive in ecological niches as high temperatures, extremes of pH, high salt concentration and high pressure. The Archaea constitute a separate domain of possibly ancient organisms that exist under extreme conditions. Members of archaeal family Halobacteriaceae thrive in natural lakes and sediments of high salinity or alkaline soda lakes, but also in solar salterns and other hypersaline environments of antropogenic origin. Although, the solar salterns around the world have been extensively studied, little is known about haloarcheal diversity in the salterns of the Adriatic coast.
Thermal stability: Interestingly, the upper temperature border of life is still unknown and depends on the stability of biomacromolecules. Cell components such as lipids, nucleic acids and proteins are usually quite heat sensitive. Membrane lipids of all archaea (including mesophiles) contain either lipids derived from diphytanyl-glicerol or its dimer di(biphytanyl)-glicerol, which exhibit remarkable resistance against hydrolysis at high temperatures and at acid pH. Thermal resistance of the DNA double helix appears to be improved in hyperthermophiles by reverse gyrase, a unique type I DNA topoisomerase that cause positive supertwists for stabilization in addition to histones. The secondary structure of ribonucleic acid appears to be stabilized against thermal destruction by an increase content of GC base pairs within the steam areas and by post-transcriptional modification.
Biotechnology: Extremophilic archaea have many attractive properties worth to exploit. They grow under unusual conditions - unusual conditions have resulted in the evolution of unusual proteins and enzymes with attractive properties for exploitation. In particular we will focus on halophilic proteins, antimicrobials named halocins and selected extracellular-polymer-degrading enzymes, such as proteinases, with a possible use in food, chemical and pharmaceutical industries and in environmental biotechnology.
