Microbial Genome Sequencing: Salinibacter ruber: A Bacterium that Behaves Like a Haloarchaean

高盐环境被认为是嗜盐古菌的专属保护区，它们是应对这些极端条件的专家。然而，最近发现，结晶池中的许多原核生物实际上是噬纤维菌属的细菌。这一簇的代表菌株现已从几个地方分离出来，并被描述为新物种红色盐杆菌，这是一种好氧异养菌，在纯培养中容易生长，并表现出许多“盐古菌”的生理特性。这些特性很可能是显著收敛、广泛的域间基因转移或最有可能是这两种事件的组合的结果。盐杆菌，已被证明是极端和高产微生物生态系统中的重要参与者，据我们所知，是唯一的嗜盐细菌，而不是产生相容的溶质和排除盐，已经使其每种蛋白质在非常高的内部离子浓度下发挥作用。除了这些有趣的生理方面，S。Ruber属于复杂的和基因组学上采样不足的谱系（噬细胞杆菌-拟杆菌组）。本研究计划的主要目标是对S.鲁伯。此外，基因组序列将被仔细检查，以寻找基因转移事件和趋同进化的证据。预计S.鲁伯将被证明是对进化和分子生物学的理解的杰出贡献者之一，并且在基因和蛋白质水平上将展示独立实现的（趋同的）和横向获得的适应性的混合。

Hypersaline environments were considered to be the exclusive preserve of halophilic archaea, specialists at coping with these extreme conditions. It has recently been discovered however, that many of the prokaryotic inhabitants of crystallizer ponds are actually bacteria of the Cytophaga cluster. Representative strains of this cluster have now been isolated from several locales, and have been described as the new species Salinibacter ruber, an aerobic heterotroph that grows readily in pure culture and exhibits many "haloarchaeal" physiological properties. These properties are likely the result of remarkable convergence, extensive inter-domain gene transfer, or most likely a combination of both of these events. Salinibacter, has turned out to be a significant player in an extreme and highly productive microbial ecosystem, and as far as we know, is the only halophilic bacterium that, rather than producing compatible solutes and excluding salt, has adapted each of its proteins to function at very high internal ionic concentrations. In addition to these interesting physiological aspects, S. ruber belongs to a complex and genomically under-sampled lineage (the Cytophaga-Flexibacter- Bacteroides group). The main goal of this research project is to sequence, annotate and analyze the entire genome of S. ruber. In addition, the genome sequence will be closely examined for evidence of gene transfer events and convergent evolution. It is anticipated that S. ruber will prove to be one of the extraordinary contributors to the understanding of evolution and molecular biology, and at the gene and protein level will demonstrate a mix of independently achieved (convergent) and laterally acquired adaptations.