The deep-sea hypersaline lakes in the Red Sea are among the most challenging,
extreme, and unusual environments on the planet Earth. Despite their harshness
to life, they are inhabited by diverse and novel members of prokaryotes.
Methanogenesis was proposed as one of the main metabolic pathways that drive
microbial colonization in similar habitats. However, not much is known about the
identities of the methane-producing microbes in the Red Sea, let alone the way in
which they could adapt to such poly extreme environments. Combining a range of
microbial community assessment, cultivation and omics (genomics,
transcriptomics, and single amplified genomics) approaches, this dissertation
seeks to fill these gaps in our knowledge by studying archaeal composition,
particularly methanogens, their genomic capacities and transcriptomic
characteristics in order to elucidate their diversity, function, and adaptation to the
deep-sea brines of the Red Sea. Although typical methanogens are not abundant
in the samples collected from brine pool habitats of the Red Sea, the pilot
cultivation experiment has revealed novel halophilic methanogenic species of the
domain Archaea. Their physiological traits as well as their genomic and
transcriptomic features unveil an interesting genetic and functional adaptive
capacity that allows them to thrive in the unique deep-sea hypersaline
environments in the Red Sea.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:kaust.edu.sa/oai:repository.kaust.edu.sa:10754/583968 |
| Date | 15 December 2015 |
| Creators | Guan, Yue |
| Contributors | Stingl, Ulrich, Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) Division, Ravasi, Timothy, Saikaly, Pascal, Ferry, James |
| Source Sets | King Abdullah University of Science and Technology |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
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