Differential gene expression in response to salinity and temperature in a Haloarcula strain from great Salt Lake, Utah

Abstract

Haloarchaea that inhabit Great Salt Lake (GSL), a thalassohaline terminal lake, must respond to the fluctuating climate conditions of the elevated desert of Utah. We investigated how shifting environmental factors, specifically salinity and temperature, affected gene expression in the GSL haloarchaea, NA6-27, which we isolated from the hypersaline north arm of the lake. Combined data from cultivation, microscopy, lipid analysis, antibiotic sensitivity, and 16S rRNA gene alignment, suggest that NA6-27 is a member of the Haloarcula genus. Our prior study demonstrated that archaea in the Haloarcula genus were stable in the GSL microbial community over seasons and years. In this study, RNA arbitrarily primed PCR (RAP-PCR) was used to determine the transcriptional responses of NA6-27 grown under suboptimal salinity and temperature conditions. We observed alteration of the expression of genes related to general stress responses, such as transcription, translation, replication, signal transduction, and energy metabolism. Of the ten genes that were expressed differentially under stress, eight of these genes responded in both conditions, highlighting this general response. We also noted gene regulation specific to salinity and temperature conditions, such as osmoregulation and transport. Taken together, these data indicate that the GSL Haloarcula strain, NA6-27, demonstrates both general and specific responses to salinity and/or temperature stress, and suggest a mechanistic model for homeostasis that may explain the stable presence of this genus in the community as environmental conditions shift.