Haloarchaea and Haloviruses| MIKE DYALL-SMITH'S RESEARCH
| Picture of acridine orange stained cells of a new Haloquadratum isolate from an australian salt lake. |
| Archaeal motility looks similar to flagellar motility in Bacteria, but the structures and mechanisms are completely different. |
Here is a flash video of Halobacterium salinarum cells swimming through liquid medium using a bundle of rigid, helical flagella at one pole of the rod-like cell. The blue light pulse switches the direction of rotation, but the flagella bundles remain helical. In one direction they push the cells, and in the other they pull the cells through the liquid. What do you think happens with cells having flagella bundles at both poles? (yes, they do occur). . Movie is courtesy of D. Oesterhelt and colleagues at the MPI, Martinsried, Germany. They maintain copyright of this material and any queries should be directed to Prof. D. Oesterhelt. |
News
2008: Since leaving the University of Melbourne, I am now in the Oesterhelt laboratory, studying the genomics of the square haloarchaeon Haloquadratum walsbyi C23T.
May '08: Version 7 of the Halohandbook released.
Mar '08: Sadly, Dick Shand passed away after a long battle with cancer. Well known for his work on haloarchaea, particularly halocins. He will be greatly missed.
2007: The taxonomic description of the square haloarchaea of Walsby, Haloquadratum walsbyi, has been published in IJSEM. The type species, strain C23, was isolated in my laboratory.