Abstract
Archaea, like bacteria, use type IV pili to facilitate surface adhesion. Moreover, archaeal flagella—structures required for motility—share a common ancestry with type IV pili. While the characterization of archaeal homologs of bacterial type IV pilus biosynthesis components has revealed important aspects of flagellum and pilus biosynthesis and the mechanisms regulating motility and adhesion in archaea, many questions remain. Therefore, we screened a Haloferax volcanii transposon insertion library for motility mutants using motility plates and adhesion mutants, using an adapted air–liquid interface assay. Here, we identify 20 genes, previously unknown to affect motility or adhesion. These genes include potential novel regulatory genes that will help to unravel the mechanisms underpinning these processes. Both screens also identified distinct insertions within the genomic region lying between two chemotaxis genes, suggesting that chemotaxis not only plays a role in archaeal motility, but also in adhesion. Studying these genes, as well as hypothetical genes hvo_2512 and hvo_2876—also critical for both motility and adhesion—will likely elucidate how these two systems interact. Furthermore, this study underscores the usefulness of the transposon library to screen other archaeal cellular processes for specific phenotypic defects.
Highlights
In archaea, similar to bacteria, the ability to move and adhere to surfaces is an essential part of cell life, aiding in processes such as movement toward nutrients and away from toxins, as well as resisting environmental stressors through the establishment of biofilms [1]
Certain aspects of these archaeal functions and the biology responsible for them resemble those found in bacteria, such as the dependence of many archaea on rotating flagella for swimming motility, and type IV pili for surface adhesion [2,3]
Type IV pilus biosynthesis was found to be conserved between bacteria and archaea, the archaeal flagellum and its subunits, the flagellins, share no homology with their bacterial counterparts [3]
Summary
Similar to bacteria, the ability to move and adhere to surfaces is an essential part of cell life, aiding in processes such as movement toward nutrients and away from toxins, as well as resisting environmental stressors through the establishment of biofilms [1]. Certain aspects of these archaeal functions and the biology responsible for them resemble those found in bacteria, such as the dependence of many archaea on rotating flagella (archaella) for swimming motility, and type IV pili for surface adhesion [2,3]. The archaeal flagellins, despite lacking homology to pilins—the pilus subunits—have a signal peptide
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