Interaction of haloarchaea with metals

Abstract

Haloarchaea are predominant microflora of hypersaline econiches such as solar saltern, salt lakes, and salt deposits and so on. Urbanization and industrialization including mining, agriculture, and waste disposal in coastal countries result in the discharge of effluents containing toxic metal ions into rivers, estuaries, and marine econiches. Saltpans located along the estuary often serve as a sink of these metal toxicants. Moreover, solar salterns are sites where microorganisms thrive and where haloarchaea are predominant indicating their survival in metal-toxicated environment to be the result of resistance mechanism specialized to overcome the stress. This chapter reviews and focuses on the various resistance strategies adopted by Archaea especially haloarchaea to survive the metal-contaminated econiche.