A halocin-H4 mutant Haloferax mediterranei strain retains the ability to inhibit growth of other halophilic archaea

Adit Naor, Yael Yair, Uri Gophna*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

Many members of the Halobacteriaceae were found to produce halocins, molecules that inhibit the growth of other halophilic archaea. Halocin H4 that is produced by Haloferax mediterranei and inhibits the growth of Halobacterium salinarum is one of the best studied halocins to date. The gene encoding this halocin had been previously identified as halH4, located on one of Hfx. mediterranei megaplasmids. We generated a mutant of the halH4 gene and examined the killing ability of the Haloferax mediterranei halH4 mutant with respect to both Halobacterium salinarum and Haloferax volcanii. We showed that both wild-type Hfx. mediterranei and the halH4 mutant strain efficiently inhibited the growth of both species, indicating halocin redundancy. Surprisingly, the halH4 deletion mutant exhibited faster growth in standard medium than the wild type, and is likely to have a better response to several nucleotides, which could explain this phenotype.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)973-979
Number of pages7
JournalExtremophiles
Volume17
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2013

Funding

FundersFunder number
The Israel Science Foundation201/12

    Keywords

    • Archaea
    • Biotechnology
    • Enzymes
    • Genetics
    • Haloarchaea
    • Halophile: ecology
    • Halophiles
    • Molecular biology of archaea
    • Phylogeny
    • Taxonomy

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