Is Proteorhodopsin a general light-driven stress adaptation system for survival in cold environments ...

• Main Author: Feng, Shi
• Format: Thesis
• Language: unknown
• Published: University Of Tasmania 2023
• Subjects: Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.25959/23241740; https://figshare.utas.edu.au/articles/thesis/Is_Proteorhodopsin_a_general_light-driven_stress_adaptation_system_for_survival_in_cold_environments/23241740

This study aimed to achieve a better understanding of microbial adaptations in sea ice focusing on the physiological role of the light harvesting proton pump proteorhodopsin. To carry out these aims the research mainly focused on exploring the genome biology, physiology and life strategy of the model sea-ice bacterial species Psychroflexus torquis, an extremely psychrophilic member of the family Flavobacteriaceae (phylum Bacteroidetes). P. torquis has a bipolar distribution and is only known to occur in polar sea-ice and associated polar waters. It possesses proteorhodopsin and is believed to have a predominantly epiphytic lifestyle, mainly dwelling on sea-ice diatoms in sea-ice basal assemblages. This study extensively used gel-free label-free based proteomic approach to explore P. torquis' genome biology and unravel the role of proteorhodopsin in aiding the species adaptation to the extreme sea ice environment. Sea ice has been estimated to have only become a stable feature on Earth in the last few million ...