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Updated: Aug 14, 2026

Adaptation at the Extremes of Life: Experimental Evolution with the Extremophile Archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius
Published on: June 14, 2024
Promiscuity in the part-phosphorylative Entner-Doudoroff pathway of the archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus
Henry J Lamble1, Alex Theodossis, Christine C Milburn
1Centre for Extremophile Research, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK.
Abstract:
The hyperthermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus metabolises glucose and galactose by a 'promiscuous' non-phosphorylative variant of the Entner-Doudoroff pathway, in which a series of enzymes have sufficient substrate promiscuity to permit the metabolism of both sugars. Recently, it has been proposed that the part-phosphorylative Entner-Doudoroff pathway occurs in parallel in S. solfataricus as an alternative route for glucose metabolism. In this report we demonstrate, by in vitro kinetic studies of D-2-keto-3-deoxygluconate (KDG) kinase and KDG aldolase, that the part-phosphorylative pathway in S. solfataricus is also promiscuous for the metabolism of both glucose and galactose.
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