Seminar By,

H. Maimooncany @ Aysha
18pps005,
N. Monicka
18pps006
Archaea Introduction:
 Group of single celled prokaryotic organisms.
 The word Archaea is derived from the Greek
word ‘Archaios’ meaning ‘ancient’ or
‘primitive’.
 Occur in extreme aquatic or terrestrial habitats.
 There are three main groups of Archaea:
Extreme Halophiles, Methanogens and
Hyperthermophiles.
Methanobrevibacter smithii
 some Archaea have been found as symbionts in
animal digestive system(Methanobrevibacter
smithii).
 Recently, these also have been collected from
very low temperature environments and are
thought to constitute about 34% of prokaryotic
biomass in costal Antarctica surface waters.

Halobacterium
General Characters:
 They are tiny range in diameter from 0.1 to 1.5 micron.
 They may be spherical(Coccus), rod shaped ( Bacillus), lobed, spiral, irregularly
shaped or pleomorphic.
 Some of them form filaments or aggregates.
 They are both Gram positive or Gram negative.
 They reproduce by means of Binary fission, Fragmentation, Budding and other
mechansims.
 They may be aerobic, facultative anaerobic or obligate anaerobic.
 Nutritionally, they range from Chemolithotrophs to Organotrophs.

Methanococcus janaschii Methanosarcina barkeri Methanothermus fervidus

S.No FEATURES BACTERIA ARCHAEA EUKARYA
.
1. Membrane Absent Absent Present
enclosed nucleus
with nucleolus
2. Membrane bound Absent Absent Present
organelles
3. Cell wall Present, made of Mostly present, variety Mostly present
peptidoglycan and muramic types, made of pseudomurin
acid acid
4. Gas vesicles Present Present Absent
5. Membrane lipid Have ester linked straight Have ether linked branched Have ester linked straight
chain of fatty acids chain of fatty acids chain of fatty acids
6. Transfer RNA Thymine present in most No thymine or TѰC arm in Thymine present
RNA tRNA
7. Sensitivity to Insensitive Sensitive Sensitive
anisomycin
8. Sensitivity to Sensitive Insensitive Insensitive
chloramphenicol and
kanamycin
9. Histones Absent Present Present

10. Plasmids Present Present Absent

11. Nitrogen fixation Present Present Absent

12. Methanogenesis Absent Present Absent

13. Chemolithotrophy Present Present Absent

14. Chlorophyll based Present in some forms Absent Present in plants

photosynthesis
15. Ribosome size 70S 70S 80S
Cell Wall Structure:
• The cell wall is present in most Archaea except some such as Thermoplasma.
• The cell wall is morphologically similar to Bacteria but chemically different.

Morphology:
⁕ The cell wall may be gram positive or gram negative.
⁕ The cell wall of gram positive Archaea is thick and homogenous.
⁕ The wall of gram negative Archaea possess a surface layer of protein or glycoprotein
subunits.
Chemistry:
⁕ The gram positive Archaea have a
variety of complex polymers in their
walls.
⁕ Methanobacterium and some other
methanogens have wall containing
pseudomurein, a peptidoglycan like
polymer that has L- amino acids in its
croos links, N- acetylosaminuronic
acid instead of N- acetylmuramic
acid.
⁕ It has ꞵ - (1 3) glycosidic bonds
instead of ꞵ (1 4) glycosidic
bonds.
⁕ Methanosarcina and Halococcus has
complex polysaccharides similar to
the chondroitin sulphate of animal
connective tissue.
⁕ Other heteropolysaccharides are also
found in gram positive walls.
⁕ The gram negative Archaea have a
layer of protein or glycoprotein
which may be about 20 – 40 nm in
thickness.
⁕ Sometimes there are two layers, a
sheath surrounding an electron dense
layer.
⁕ Some Methanogens (Methanolobus),
Halobacterium, and severa extreme
thermophiles ( Sulfobolus,
Thermoproteus) have glycoproteins
in their walls.
⁕ In contrast other Methanogens
(Methanococcus,
Methanomicrobium) and extreme
thermophiles (Desulfurococcus) have
protein walls.
Plasma membrane structure:
o The Archaea plasma membrane has lipids having branched hydrocarbon chains linked to glycerol by ether
linkage.
o The ether linkage provides stability to them against thermal breakage and branching of membranes
decreases membrane fluidity, therefore they are stable under high temperature conditions.
o Two types of lipids, glycerol diphytanyl diethers ( chains of 20 carbons) and diglycerol dibiphytanyl
tetraethers are found ( chains of 40 carbons).
o The coccoid cells of Methanogenic archaea contain only glycerol diphytanyl diethers while the
Thermoacidophiles contains mainly diglycerol dibiphytanyl tetraethers.
Genome:
֎ The genome of some archaea are significantly smaller than those of bacteria.
֎ While the genome of Bacillus subtilis is 4.20 million base pairs (Mb), the
crenarchaeote Pyrobaculum aerophilum genome is 2.22 Mb and that of
Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum, a euryarchaeotae is 1.75 Mb.
֎ In Archaea the G+C content is high, from about 21% to 68%.
֎ Few plasmids have been reported in Archaea.
֎ 30% of all genes shared between Archaea and Eukaryotes encode proteins involved in
transcription, translation or DNA metabolism.
֎ Large number of genes shared between Bacteria and Archaea are involved in metabolic
pathways.
֎ Like Bacteria, most Archaea have circular chromosomes with a single origin of
replication and replication appears to be bidirectional.
֎ However, in some Archaeal genomes that have been sequenced, the replication origin
is flanked by genes encoding the Eukaryotic like initiation protein Cdc6/Orc 1.
֎ Some Archaea have Eukaryotic like histone proteins that bind DNA to form
nucleosome like structure.
֎ There is a evidence of Horizontal Gene Transfer between Bacteria and Archaea.
RNA Polymerase Structure:
 Archaeal RNA polymerase consist of at least 10 subunits that are highly homologous to Eukaryotic
subunits.
 It is similar to Eukaryotic RNA polymerase II.
 The promoter recognition is dependent on TATA box binding protein(TBP) and transcription factor b
(TFB).
 However, the Archaeal mRNA is similar to Bacterial mRNA in that it is polycistronic and there is no
evidence of mRNA splicing.
tRNA Nucleotide Sequence:
 The Archaeal tRNA lacks TѰC
arm and they contains pseudo
uridine or 1-
methylpseudouridine.
 The Archaeal initiator tRNA
carries methionine as does
Eukaryotic tRNA.
 The Archaeal ribosomes is 70S
similar to Bacterial ribosome,
but electron microscopy studies
shows that their shape is quite
variable.
Co- enzymes And Co- factors:
• The methane production
mechanism of Methanogenic
Archaea is unique.
• It involves several novel co-
factors and co- enzymes not
found in any other
microorganisms.
• These are methanofuran,
methanopterin, Co-enzyme
M (CoM), Co- enzyme F420
and Co- enzyme F430.
 Crenarchaeota are extremely heat tolerant.
 They have special proteins and other biochemistry that can continue to
function at temperatures as high as 230 F. Many Crenarchaeota can also
survive in very acidic environments.
 Many species of Crenarchaeota have been discovered living in hot springs
and around deep sea vents, where water has been superheated by magma
beneath the Earth’s surface.
 One theory of the origin of life suggests that life may have originally started
around deep sea vents, where high temperatures and unusual chemistries
could have led to the formation of the first cells.
 It has one class and five orders.
 5 orders are :Acidolobales , Desulfurococcales,
Sulfolobales, Thermoproteales, Fervidicoccales.
 Order - Acidolobales:
• They use Sulphur during respiration.
• They are spherical (cocci) in shape
• Include members of two major families
Acidilobaceae and Caldispheraceae

 Order – Desulfurococcales: Acidilobus

• Has two families Pyrodictiaceae and family

Desulfurococcaceae.
• They may spherical or rod shape.
• Some are obligate anaerobes
Pyrolobus fumarii
 Order - Sulfolobales
• They consist of single family, Sulfolobaceae.
• They consist of hyper thermophilic and acidophilic
organisms.
• Has five genera Sulfolobus (ten species), Acidianus (seven
species), Metallosphaera (three species), Stygioglobus, and
Sulfurisphaera (one species each). Sulfolobus solfataricus

 Order – Thermoproteales:
• It consists of two families, Thermofilaceae and
Thermoproteaceae.
• They are rod shaped, organoheterotrophs, slightly
acidophilic
 Order - Fervidicoccales :
Alicyclobacillus acidocaldarius
• It consist of single family, Fervidicoccaceae.
 One of the best studied phyla consisting more than 70 genera.
 They are extremely physiologically diverse with the ability to survive some of the
most extreme environments around the world.
 Very diverse with 7 classes.
 Methanococci , Methanobacteria , Halobacteria, Thermoplasmata, Thermococci ,
Archaeglobi & Methanopyri.
 Order – Methanococci:
Species:Halophiles Genus:Methanopyrus
 The name is dervied from the Greek noun koros or kore , meaning “young
man” or “young woman” , and the Greek adjective archaios which means
“ancient”. They are also known as Xenarchaeota.
 Through these studies , it became evident that members of the phylum
grow in environment that rage between 70 to 97 degrees celsius in
temperature, and 2.5 and 6.5 in pH.
 The korarchaeota were originally discovered by microbial community
analysis of ribosomal RNA genes from environmental samples of a hot
spring in Yellowstone National Park.
Korarchaeota
 Like the phylum korarchaeota only one member (Nanoarchaeum equitans
)of phylum Nanoarcheota has currently been identified.
 N.equitans has been shown to grow attached ( in a symbiotic relationship)
to the surface of various ignicoccus species and has the following
characteriestics
 Hyperthermophollic organisms
 Can be found on hot rocks marine thermal vent environment
and springs.
 Are strict anaerobel .
 Contain divergent 16s rDNA sequece
 Lack genes responsible for the synthesis of lipid , amino acids,
and nucleotide.
 Grow well in high temperatures (about 90 degrees celsius) and
pH range of between 2.5 and 3.0 .
 As compared to korarchaeota and Nanoarchaeota,
Thaumarchaeota in better understood with the group making up
about 5% of all prokaryotes in soil systems
 They can be found in hot springs and marine water and consist
of ammonia- oxidizing organisms.
 Some of the main characteristics of Thaumarchaeota include:
 A majority of the organisms can fix carbon dioxide under
Autotrophic conditions.
 They oxidize ammonia aerobically.
 Archaea play a vital role in various places including our body itself.
 Archaebacteria are classified under extremophile and have the ability
to survive at extreme condition thus , they are the best source of
enzymes and proteins which can functions at extreme condition.
 Tag polymerase is isolated from thermophils .Thermus aquaticus.
 Methanogenes are used in the treatment of sewage water and also for
production of biogas from the waste.
 Methane production can contribute to global warming.
 Halophiles are used in the production of many salted food
products, including soysauce.
 Thermaplasma oxidizes iron sulfide (in piles of coal mines) to
sulfuric acid. As a result piles become hot and acidic.