Genetic technologies for extremely thermophilic microorganisms of Sulfolobus, the only genetically tractable genus of crenarchaea

TY - JOUR

T1 - Genetic technologies for extremely thermophilic microorganisms of Sulfolobus, the only genetically tractable genus of crenarchaea

AU - Peng, Nan

AU - Han, Wenyuan

AU - Li, Yingjun

AU - Liang, Yunxiang

AU - She, Qunxin

PY - 2017/4/30

Y1 - 2017/4/30

N2 - Archaea represents the third domain of life, with the information-processing machineries more closely resembling those of eukaryotes than the machineries of the bacterial counterparts but sharing metabolic pathways with organisms of Bacteria, the sister prokaryotic phylum. Archaeal organisms also possess unique features as revealed by genomics and genome comparisons and by biochemical characterization of prominent enzymes. Nevertheless, diverse genetic tools are required for in vivo experiments to verify these interesting discoveries. Considerable efforts have been devoted to the development of genetic tools for archaea ever since their discovery, and great progress has been made in the creation of archaeal genetic tools in the past decade. Versatile genetic toolboxes are now available for several archaeal models, among which Sulfolobus microorganisms are the only genus representing Crenarchaeota because all the remaining genera are from Euryarchaeota. Nevertheless, genetic tools developed for Sulfolobus are probably the most versatile among all archaeal models, and these include viral and plasmid shuttle vectors, conventional and novel genetic manipulation methods, CRISPR-based gene deletion and mutagenesis, and gene silencing, among which CRISPR tools have been reported only for Sulfolobus thus far. In this review, we summarize recent developments in all these useful genetic tools and discuss their possible application to research into archaeal biology by means of Sulfolobus models.

AB - Archaea represents the third domain of life, with the information-processing machineries more closely resembling those of eukaryotes than the machineries of the bacterial counterparts but sharing metabolic pathways with organisms of Bacteria, the sister prokaryotic phylum. Archaeal organisms also possess unique features as revealed by genomics and genome comparisons and by biochemical characterization of prominent enzymes. Nevertheless, diverse genetic tools are required for in vivo experiments to verify these interesting discoveries. Considerable efforts have been devoted to the development of genetic tools for archaea ever since their discovery, and great progress has been made in the creation of archaeal genetic tools in the past decade. Versatile genetic toolboxes are now available for several archaeal models, among which Sulfolobus microorganisms are the only genus representing Crenarchaeota because all the remaining genera are from Euryarchaeota. Nevertheless, genetic tools developed for Sulfolobus are probably the most versatile among all archaeal models, and these include viral and plasmid shuttle vectors, conventional and novel genetic manipulation methods, CRISPR-based gene deletion and mutagenesis, and gene silencing, among which CRISPR tools have been reported only for Sulfolobus thus far. In this review, we summarize recent developments in all these useful genetic tools and discuss their possible application to research into archaeal biology by means of Sulfolobus models.

KW - Journal Article

KW - Review

U2 - 10.1007/s11427-016-0355-8

DO - 10.1007/s11427-016-0355-8

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 28251462

SN - 1674-7305

VL - 60

SP - 370

EP - 385

JO - Science China Life Sciences

JF - Science China Life Sciences

IS - 4

ER -