Biofilm formation in Archaea
We studied how different Sulfolobus species form biofilms, how these are build and which components build their matrix. Moreover, we identified archaea specific regulators, the Lrs14 familiy, which are involved in the regulation of pathways that lead to biofilm formation such as EPS production.
The different show different phenotypes in biofilm with S. acidocaldarius showing the highest production of EPS during biofilm growth. AbfR1 was one of the regulators which were identified to be important for biofilm formation in S. acidocaldarius. This regulator is actually stimulating archaella expression and thereby inhibiting biofilm formation.
Papers:
van Wolferen M, Orell A, Albers SV. (2018) Archaeal biofilm formation.
Nat Rev Microbiol. 16(11):699-713. doi: 10.1038/s41579-018-0058-4.
Orell A, Peeters E, Vassen V, Jachlewski S, Schalles S, Siebers B, Albers SV. (2013) Lrs14 transcriptional regulators influence biofilm formation and cell motility of Crenarchaea.
ISME J. 7(10):1886-98. doi: 10.1038/ismej.2013.68.
Koerdt A, Orell A, Pham TK, Mukherjee J, Wlodkowski A, Karunakaran E, Biggs CA, Wright PC, Albers SV. (2011) Macromolecular fingerprinting of sulfolobus species in biofilm: a transcriptomic and proteomic approach combined with spectroscopic analysis.
J Proteome Res. ;10(9):4105-19. doi: 10.1021/pr2003006. Epub 2011 Aug 1.