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Life
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Microbial Adaptations and Acclimation to Extreme Environments
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Microbial Adaptations and Acclimation to Extreme Environments

A special issue of Life (ISSN 2075-1729). This special issue belongs to the section "Microbiology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (26 November 2021) | Viewed by 5118

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Przemyslaw Malec

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
Interests: plant biology; environmental science; photosynthesis, abiotic stress adaptation; phytotechnologies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Rajesh Jha

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1955 East-West Rd., AgSci 216, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
Interests: animal nutrition; gut health and physiology; early nutrition programming; carbohydrate metabolism; fiber fermentation
Prof. Dr. Pengcheng Fu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China
Interests: bioengineering; biosystems engineering; chemical engineering; plant science; synthetic biology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Among many biotops in the Earth's biosphere inhabited by prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms, certain habitats considered very hard to survive for life forms due to extreme values of physical (e.g., temperature, irradiation, pressure), chemical (e.g., salinity, acidity/alkalinity, redox potential, concentration of toxicants), or biological (e.g., nutritional availability, interactions with other organisms) parameters in a given environment. 

Extremophiles (sensu stricto) are microorganisms growing under specific environmental extremes. They show considerable adaptations to specific environmental factors, i.e., they are thermophilic, acidophilic, etc. In consequence, their occurrence is usually limited to peculiar ecological niches. For years, these microorganisms have gathered global attention among scientists representing various areas of research including among others evolutionary sciences (origin of life studies), Earth sciences (studies of biogeochemical cycling of elements), marine sciences (studies of life under high pressure and low light availability), exo- and astrobiology (the search for extraterrestrial forms of life), biotechnology (the search for new enzymatic activities - "extremozymes"), environmental sciences (the use in bioremediation processes) and medical sciences (identification of certain metabolites – “extremolytes,” for prospective therapeutic use).

On the other hand, there is a large, poorly defined group of microorganisms that, due to their structural and/or metabolic plasticity, are able to outlast even under harsh environmental conditions, in which they do not thrive under average circumstances. To acclimate to changing life conditions, these "facultative extremophiles" (sensu largo) may temporarily or semi-permanently conform certain cellular and metabolic processes to increase survival chances.

Recently, application of advanced structural biology methods together with techniques of global analysis including transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics have facilitated identification of mechanistic backgrounds of biological adaptation and acclimation.

Therefore, this Special Issue of Life is focused on cellular, biochemical, and molecular factors that are essential for the integrity and functioning of all types of microorganisms in extreme environments as well as on processes crucial for the adaptation and/or acclimation of microorganisms to harsh environmental conditions. Original research and review articles covering all aspects of microbial life in extreme environments as well as on mechanisms and processes that determine physiological functionality of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms under harsh environmental pressure are welcome.

Dr. Przemyslaw Malec
Dr. Rajesh Jha
Prof. Dr. Pengcheng Fu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Life is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • microorganisms
  • extreme environments
  • extremophiles
  • adaptation
  • acclimation

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 2658 KiB  
Article
Genome-Wide Investigation and Analysis of Microsatellites and Compound Microsatellites in Leptolyngbya-like Species, Cyanobacteria
by Dan Yao, Lei Cheng, Lianming Du, Meijin Li, Maurycy Daroch and Jie Tang
Life 2021, 11(11), 1258; https://doi.org/10.3390/life11111258 - 18 Nov 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 1790
Abstract
Microsatellites (simple sequence repeats, SSRs) are ubiquitously distributed in almost all known genomes. Here, the first investigation was designed to examine the SSRs and compound microsatellites (CSSRs) in genomes of Leptolyngbya-like strains. The results disclosed diversified patterns of distribution, abundance, density, and [...] Read more.
Microsatellites (simple sequence repeats, SSRs) are ubiquitously distributed in almost all known genomes. Here, the first investigation was designed to examine the SSRs and compound microsatellites (CSSRs) in genomes of Leptolyngbya-like strains. The results disclosed diversified patterns of distribution, abundance, density, and diversity of SSRs and CSSRs in genomes, indicating that they may be subject to rapid evolutionary change. The numbers of SSRs and CSSRs were extremely unevenly distributed among genomes, ranging from 11,086 to 24,000 and from 580 to 1865, respectively. Dinucleotide SSRs were the most abundant category in 31 genomes, while the other 15 genomes followed the pattern: mono- > di- > trinucleotide SSRs. The patterns related to SSRs and CSSRs showed differences among phylogenetic groups. Both SSRs and CSSRs were overwhelmingly distributed in coding regions. The numbers of SSRs and CSSRs were significantly positively correlated with genome size (p < 0.01) and negatively correlated with GC content (p < 0.05). Moreover, the motif (A/C)n and (AG)n was predominant in mononucleotide and dinucleotide SSRs, and unique motifs of CSSRs were identified in 39 genomes. This study provides the first insight into SSRs and CSSRs in genomes of Leptolyngbya-like strains and will be useful to understanding their distribution, predicting their function, and tracking their evolution. Additionally, the identified SSRs may provide an evolutionary advantage of fast adaptation to environmental changes and may play an important role in the cosmopolitan distribution of Leptolyngbya strains to globally diverse niches. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microbial Adaptations and Acclimation to Extreme Environments)
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12 pages, 3250 KiB  
Article
Molecular Components of Nitrogen Fixation Gene Cluster and Associated Enzymatic Activities of Non-Heterocystous Thermophilic Cyanobacterium Thermoleptolyngbya sp.
by Meijin Li, Lei Cheng, Jie Tang and Maurycy Daroch
Life 2021, 11(7), 640; https://doi.org/10.3390/life11070640 - 30 Jun 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2470
Abstract
Thermoleptolyngbya is a genus of non-heterocystous cyanobacteria that are typical inhabitants of hot spring microbial mats. These filamentous cyanobacteria are capable of nitrogen fixation. In this study, we examined the genome sequences of five publicly available Thermoleptolyngbya strains to explore their nitrogen fixation [...] Read more.
Thermoleptolyngbya is a genus of non-heterocystous cyanobacteria that are typical inhabitants of hot spring microbial mats. These filamentous cyanobacteria are capable of nitrogen fixation. In this study, we examined the genome sequences of five publicly available Thermoleptolyngbya strains to explore their nitrogen fixation gene cluster. Analysis of the nitrogen-fixation clusters in these extremophilic strains revealed that the cluster is located in a single locus in Thermoleptolyngbyace. The average nucleotide and amino acid identities of the nitrogen-fixation cluster combined with phylogenetic reconstructions support that nitrogen fixation genes in Thermoleptolyngbyaceae are closely related to one another but also heterogeneous within the genus. The strains from Asia, and China more specifically, generate a separate clade within the genus. Among these strains Thermoleptolyngbya sp. PKUAC-SCTB121 has been selected for experimental validation of clade’s nitrogen fixation capacity. The acetylene reduction experiments of that strain shown that the strain can reduce acetylene to ethylene, indicating a fully functional nitrogenase. The activity of nitrogenase has been tested using different gas compositions across 72 h and exhibited a two-phase trend, high nitrogenase activity at the beginning of the assay that slowed down in the second phase of the analysis. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microbial Adaptations and Acclimation to Extreme Environments)
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