Halo(natrono)archaea isolated from hypersaline lakes utilize cellulose and chitin as growth substrates
Journal: Frontiers in Microbiology
Year: 2015

Until recently, extremely halophilic euryarchaeota were considered mostly as aerobic heterotrophs utilizing simple organic compounds as growth substrates. Almost nothing is known on the ability of these prokaryotes to utilize complex polysaccharides, such as cellulose, xylan, and chitin. Although few haloarchaeal cellulases and chitinases were recently characterized, the analysis of currently available haloarchaeal genomes deciphered numerous genes-encoding glycosidases of various families inclu