GlpR Is a Direct Transcriptional Repressor of Fructose Metabolic Genes in Haloferax volcanii

Abstract

Many archaea are extremophiles, able to thrive in habitats of extreme salinity, pH and temperature. These biological properties are ideal for applications in biotechnology. However, limited knowledge of archaeal metabolism is a bottleneck that prevents the broad use of archaea as microbial factories for industrial products. Here, we characterize how sugar uptake and use are regulated in a species that lives in high salinity. We demonstrate that a key sugar regulatory protein in this archaeal species functions using molecular mechanisms conserved with distantly related bacterial species.