Salinibacter ruber
A Microbial Biorealm page on the genus Salinibacter ruber
Classification
Higher order taxa
cellular organisms; Bacteria; Bacteroidetes/Chlorobi group; Bacteroidetes; Sphingobacteria; Sphingobacteriales; Sphingobacteriales genera incertae sedis; Salinibacter
Species
NCBI: Taxonomy |
Salinibacter ruber
Description and significance
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Salinibacter ruber is an extremely halophilic red bacteria and was found in saltern crystallizer ponds in Alicante and Mallorca, Spain. This environment has very high salt concentrations, and Salinibacter ruber itself cannot grow below 15% salt concentration, with an ideal concentration between 20-30%. Salinibacter ruber survives in this harsh environment because of an adaptation in order to cope with the high salt concentrations.
This bacteria is very interesting because of it extremophile tendencies as a bacteria, when this is common mostly in the domain Archaea. Bacteria do not, in general, play a large role in microbial communities of hypersaline brines at or approaching NaCl saturation. However, with the discovery of S. ruber, this belief was weakened. It was found that S. ruber made up from 5% to 25% of the total prokaryotic community of the Spanish saltern ponds! (2)
Salinibacter ruber is most closely related to the genus Rhodothermus which is a thermophilic, slightly halophilic bacteria. Though genetically it is considered to be closest to the Rhodothermus genus, it is most comparable to the family Halobacteriaceae, because of similarity in protein structure.
Genome structure
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Cell structure and metabolism
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Ecology
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Pathology
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Application to Biotechnology
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Current Research
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References
Edited by student of Rachel Larsen