In 2012, Aharon Oren wrote a review on the family Halobacteriaceae, where he pointed out with some surprise that the “type species of the type genus of the family and the order” had not yet been sequenced. This was despite the genomes of strains R1 and NRC-1 having been reported years previously. I am happy to say that today this deficit has been remedied, as described in our recent publication in Microbial Resource Announcements, and sequence submissions to Genbank, under accessions CP038631 (chromosome), CP038632 (pHSAL1), and CP038633 (pHSAL2). Assembly of these replicons was not a straightforward task, as there were very large repeats, and considerable genomic variability. We are currently working on a more detailed analysis of this sequence.
(more…)Genome of the type strain of Hbt. salinarum
ChaoS9 – a novel halovirus
What happens when ChaoS9 gets into your culture! The paper describing this new virus is now published and can be found at: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/10/3/194
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Excellent paper just out by Zhou et al. describing exotic viruses of haloarchaea and nanohaloarchaea, and satellite plasmids (related to pL6-family plasmids).
Along with my ‘News and Views’ article about it.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-025-02158-6
What happens to Haloferax volcanii if you delete all of its resident proviruses? Read all about it here:
Just out, “DNA Replication in Time and Space: The Archaeal Dimension” by Anastasia Serdyuk and Thorsten Allers. The last paragraph of the discussion is thought provoking – even provocative!
New details about Haloferax Tailed Virus 1 (HFTV1) and the effects of infection on its host reported by Schwarzer et al.
https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.04.24.650469
Under pressure, haloarchaea stick together! See the paper by Rados et al. in Science
Microtubules in Asgard archaea! Nice study with excellent cyoEM and cryo-tomography pictures.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2025.02.027
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