DOMAIN ARCHAEA

KINGDOM
ARCHAEBACTERIA
THE ARCHAEA
 ARCHAEA
 .ARE A GROUP OF MICROORGANISMS THAT ARE SIMILAR TO, BUT
EVOLUTIONARILY DISTINCT FROM BACTERIA. MANY ARCHAEA HAVE
BEEN FOUND LIVING IN EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS. ARCHAEA WERE
INITIALLY CLASSIFIED AS BACTERIA, RECEIVING THE NAME
ARCHAEBACTERIA.
 SOME OF THE FIRST ARCHAEABACTERIA WERE DISCOVERED IN
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK’S HOT SPRINGS.
 BASIC FACTS ABOUT ARCHAEA
• THEY LIVE IN EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS(LIKE
HOT SPRINGS OR SALTY LAKES) AND NORMAL
ENVIRONMENTS(LIKE SOIL AND OCEAN WATER).
• ALL ARE UNICELLULAR(EACH INDIVIDUAL IS
ONLY ONE CELL).
• NO PEPTIDOGLYCAN IN THEIR CELL WALL.
• SOME HAVE A FLAGELLA THAT AIDS IN THEIR
LOCOMOTION.
• MOST DON’T NEED OXYGEN TO SURVIVE
• THEY CAN PRODUCE ATP(ENERGY) FROM
SUNLIGHT
• THEY CAN SURVIVE UNDER ROCKS AND IN
OCEAN FLOOR VENTS DEEP BELOW THE OCEAN’S
SURFACE
• THEY CAN TOLERATE HUGE PRESSURE
DIFFERENCES
 ARCHAEA vs. BACTERIA vs. EUKARYA

Domain Archaea Domain Bacteria

• The Archaea are composed of small • Composed of small, single-celled organisms
• Single-celled organisms. • Prokaryotic Cell
• Composed of Prokaryotic cell • No Nucleus
• No nucleus.
• Asexual reproduction
• Asexual reproduction by dividing in two.
• Cell wall contains peptidoglycan
• Cell wall contains pseudopeptidoglycan
• Lastly, Archaea often live in extreme environments
including hot springs, geysers, and salt flats. Bacteria do
not live in these environments.
 EUKARYA
Domain Eukarya
• All of the cells in the domain Eukarya keep their genetic
material, or DNA, inside the nucleus. The domain
Eukarya is made up of four kingdoms:
• Plantae: Plants, such as trees and grasses, survive by
capturing energy from the sun, a process called  • Protista: Protists are not all descended from a single
photosynthesis.
• Fungi: Fungi, such as mushrooms and molds, survive by
"eating" other organisms or the remains of other
organisms. These organisms absorb their nutrients from
other organisms.
• Animalia: Animals also survive by eating other organisms
or the remains of other organisms. Animals range from tiny
ants to the largest whales, and include arthropods, fish, 
amphibians, reptiles, and mammals (Figure below).
common ancestor in the way that plants, animals, and fungi
 are. Protists are all the eukaryotic organisms that do not fit
into one of the other three kingdoms. They include many
kinds of microscopic one-celled (unicellular) organisms,
such as algae and plankton, but also giant seaweeds that can
grow to be 200 feet long.
CHARACTERISTICS OF
ARCHAEA
 CELL STRUCTURE OF ARCHAEA
• CELL MEMBRANE CONSIST OF A THE FLAGELLA OR LIKE LONG TAILS THAT
PHOSPHOLOPID BILAYER MOVE BACK AND FORTH TO PROPEL THE CELL
FORWARD; FUNTIONING LIKE A CAUDAL FIN
• TYPES OF LIPIDS ARE SIGNIFICANTLY
OF FISH.
DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER MEMBRANES
• MOST ARCHAEAL CELL WALL IS A SEMI- • HAVE MANY SHAPES
RIGID STRUSTURE DESINED TO PROVIDE  SPHERICAL
PROTECTION TO THE CELL FROM THE
 ROD SHAPE
ENVIRONMENT.
 SPIRAL
• THEIR METHOD OF MOVEMENT COMES
FROM ORGANELLE KNOWN FLAGELLA AND  FLAT
A PROCESS OF BROWNIAN MOVEMENT.
 NEEDLE LIKR
 ENVIRONMENTS
• ARCHAEA ARE MICROBES. MOST LIVE IN EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS. THESE ARE CALLED
EXTREMOPHILES. OTHER ARCHAEA SPECIES ARE NOT EXTRMOPHILES AND LIVE IN
ORDINARY SALINITIES. SOME LIVE IN OUR GUTS.

• METHANOGENS – produce methane

• THERMOPHILE – love heat would probably freeze to death at ordinary room temperature.

• HALOPHILES – love salt, called hypersaline environments

 METHANOGENS
• Methanogenic archaea, or methanogens, are an
important group of microoraganisms that produce
methane as a metabolic byproduct under anaerobic
conditions. Methanogens belong to the domain
archaea, which is distinct from bacteria. Methanogens
are commonly found in the guts of animals, deep layers
of marine sediment, hydrothermal vents, and wetlands.
They are responsible for the methane in the belches of
ruminants, as in, the flatulence in humans, and the
marsh gas of wetlands.
• In the human gut, accumulation of hydrogen reduces the efficiency of
microbial processes, reducing energy yield. Methanogens such as M.
smithii are pivotal in the removal of this excess hydrogen from the gut
and may be useful therapeutic targets for reducing energy harvest in
obese humans.
• In marine sediments, biomethanation is generally confined to where
sulfates are depleted, below the top layers. Methanogens play a key
role in the remineralization of organic carbon in continental margin
sediments and other aquatic sediments with high rates of
sedimentation and organic matter. Under the correct temperatures and
pressure, biogenic methane can accumulate in massive deposits,
which account for significant fractions of organic carbon and key
reservoirs of a potent greenhouse gas.
 CHARACTERISTICS
• All methanogens share three common features.
• (1) They are obligate methane producers, obtaining all or most of their
energy for growth from producing large quantities of methane.
• (2) They are archaea, belonging to the phylum Euryarchaeota.
• (3) They are strict anaerobes, limiting their growth to anaerobic
environments.
HALOPHILES
 HALOPHILES
• Halophiles are extremophiles that thrive in environments
with very high concentrations of salt. In fact, the very name
“halophile” comes from the Greek word for “salt-loving. ”
Although some halophilic bacteria and eukaryotes exist,
the largest classification of halophiles is in the Archaea
domain.
• Halophiles can be found anywhere with a salt
concentration at least five times greater than that of the
ocean. They are categorized as slight, moderate, or extreme
halophiles based on the extent of their halotolerance.
Halophiles thrive in places such as the Great Salt Lake,
Owens Lake in California, evaporation ponds, and the
Dead Sea – places that provide an inhospitable
environment to most lifeforms.
• High salinity represents an extreme environment that
relatively few organisms have been able to adapt to and
occupy. Most halophilic organisms cope with the high
concentrations of salt by expending energy to exclude salt
from their cytoplasm to avoid protein aggregation, or
“salting out. ” “Normal” organisms would desiccate in
these conditions, losing water via osmosis out of the
cytoplasm.
• Halophiles use sunlight as energy, but not through
photosynthesis, so they considered phototrophs instead of
autotrophs.
• They are primarily aerobics and they use organic materials
for their source of carbon, they don’t use carbon dioxide.
 CHARACTERISTICS
• Proteins from moderate and extreme halophiles have unique characteristics. They
are highly acidic and hydrophilic, similar to intrinsically disordered proteins. These
characteristics make the halophilic proteins soluble in water and fold reversibly. In
addition to reversible folding, the rate of refolding of halophilic proteins from
denatured structure is generally slow, often taking several days, for example, for
extremely halophilic proteins. This slow folding rate makes the halophilic proteins
a novel model system for folding mechanism analysis. High solubility and
reversible folding also make the halophilic proteins excellent fusion partners for
soluble expression of recombinant proteins.
THERMOPHILES
 THERMOPHILES
• Hermophiles are a type of extremophile,
or organism that loves extremes. Most
thermophiles belong to the Archaea
Domain, which was not even discovered
until the 1970s. Other members of the
Archaea Domain include other
extremophiles like halophiles, which
love salt, and acidophiles, which love
acid. You may have noticed by now that
the suffix phile means 'love.‘.
• Because thermophiles like hot
temperatures, they are found in some of
the most hostile environments on Earth.
For example, they can survive in hot
springs or even in hydrothermal vents
found under the ocean. Thermophiles
survive on gases, minerals, and metals
that can be found in these extreme
environments.
 CHARACTERISTICS
• The phylum Thermotogae is composed of gram-negative staining, anaerobic, mostly thermophilic, and hyperthermophilic bacteria.
• The Aquificae phylum is a diverse collection of bacteria that live in harsh environmental settings. They have been found in hot springs,
sulfur pools, and thermal ocean vents.
• A 51 amino acid insertion has been identified in SecA preprotein translocase which is shared by various members of the phylum Aquificae
as well as 2 Thermotoga species. The presence of the insertion in the Thermotoga species may be due to a horizontal gene transfer.
• However, a close relationship of the Aquificae to Thermotogae and the deep branching of Aquificae is not supported by phylogenetic studies
based upon other gene/ protein sequences and also by conserved signature indels in several highly conserved universal proteins.
• Thermophile: An organism — a type of extremophile — that thrives at relatively high temperatures, between 45 and 122 °C (113 and 252
°F). Many thermophiles are archaea. Thermophilic eubacteria are suggested to have been among the earliest bacteria.
• Hyperthermophile: An organism that thrives in extremely hot environments— from 60 degrees C (140 degrees F) upwards. An optimal
temperature for the existence of hyperthermophiles is above 80°C (176°F). Hyperthermophiles are a subset of extremophiles, micro-
organisms within the domain Archaea, although some bacteria are able to tolerate temperatures of around 100°C (212°F), as well.
 EXAMPLE OF DISEASE
• Archea are cells that are considered "non-pathogenic". This means that they are
not harmful at all for humans. The most common archaea cell found in humans is
called "Methanobrevibacter smithii.", and it´s not harmful for us. On the contrary
of bacteria, archaea don't carry viruses that can be harmful for us.
• So far, most archaea are known to be beneficial rather than harmful to
human health. They may be important for reducing skin pH or keeping it at low
levels, and lower pH is associated with lower susceptibility to infections. So far,
there is little evidence of the pathogenicity of archaea.”
 EFFECT OF M. SMITHII
• On the most basic level, it produces methane.
• When we eat starchy foods like bread or potatoes, our gut microbiomes get to work digesting.
• That creates hydrogen and carbon dioxide gas. Part of that hydrogen is gobbled up by M. smithii, which then
produces methane.
• The methane can be exhaled on your breath, eliminated in your stool, or absorbed into your blood.
• Some people have higher concentrations of this methane-producer in their guts than others and they tend to be at
higher risk of obesity and constipation-predominant IBS.
• There's also a growing number of studies that suggest M. smithii and other archaea affect metabolism and can
cause weight gain.
• And it can affect how well your body absorbs sugars—also known as glucose tolerance. Impaired glucose
tolerance is a sign that someone could develop diabetes.