British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

Abstract A method to grow the halophilic archaeon Haloferax volcanii in microtiter plates has been optimized and now allows the parallel generation of very reproducible growth curves. The doubling time in a synthetic medium with glucose is around 6-h. The method was used to optimize glucose and casamino acid concentrations, to clarify carbon source usage and to analyze vitamin dependence. The characterization of osmotolerance revealed that after a lag phase of 24-h, H. volcanii is able to grow at salt concentrations as low as 0.7-M NaCl, much lower than the 1.4-M NaCl described as the lowest concentration until now. The application of oxidative stresses showed that H. volcanii exhibits a reaction to paraquat that is delayed by about 10-h. Surprisingly, only one of two amino acid auxotrophi...