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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
[Construction of an engineered Acidithiobacillus caldus with high-efficiency arsenic resistance]
Qing Zhao1, Xiang-mei Liu, Yang Zhan
1State Key Lab of Microbial Technology, Shandong University, Jinan, China.
Abstract:
Using the recombinant technique in vitro, a new arsenic resistance plasmid pSDRA4 was constructed by subcloning the arsenic resistance genes from plasmid pUM3 into the wide-host-range IncQ plasmid pMMB24 with the hybrid trp-lac ( tac ) promoter, and followed by deleting the regulative gene of the promoter, the lacIQ gene. Then plasmid pSDRA4 was introduced from E. coli into extremely acidophilic obligately chemolithotrophic Acidithiobacillus caldus by conjugative transfer with a frequency of( 1.444 +/- 0.797) x 10(-4), and the engineered strain of Acidithiobacillus caldus (pSDRA4) for biomining was constructed. The successful transfer demonstrates the development of a conjugational system between strains of E. coli and A. caldus. The recombinant plasmid pSDRA4 is stable in A. caldus. Compared with wild type A. caldus, the level of the arsenic resistance of A. caldus (pSDRA4) is greatly raised from 10mmol/L to 45mmol/L.
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