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One property unique to archaea is the abundant use of ether-linked lipids in their cell membranes. Ether linkages are more chemically stable than the ester linkages found in bacteria and eukarya, which may be a contributing factor to the ability of many archaea to survive in extreme environments that place heavy stress on cell membranes, such ...
Bacterial motility is the ability of bacteria to move independently using metabolic energy. Most motility mechanisms that evolved among bacteria also evolved in parallel among the archaea. Most rod-shaped bacteria can move using their own power, which allows colonization of new environments and discovery of new resources for survival.
Methanogens are anaerobic archaea that produce methane as a byproduct of their energy metabolism, i.e., catabolism.Methane production, or methanogenesis, is the only biochemical pathway for ATP generation in methanogens.
In one study of the feces of nine adults, five of the samples contained archaea capable of producing methane. [13] Similar results are found in samples of gas obtained from within the rectum . Even among humans whose flatus does contain methane, the amount is in the range of 10% or less of the total amount of gas.
Reduced sulfur compounds are oxidized by most organisms, including higher animals and higher plants. [2] Some organisms can conserve energy (i.e., produce ATP) from the oxidation of sulfur and it can serve as the sole energy source for some lithotrophic bacteria and archaea. [3]
The most studied have been the genera Sulfolobus, an aerobic Archaea, and Acidianus, a facultative anaerobe (i.e. an organism that can obtain energy either by aerobic or anaerobic respiration). Sulfur oxidizing bacteria (SOB) are aerobic, anaerobic or facultative, and most of them are obligate or facultative autotrophs that can use either ...
It has been proposed that thermophilic archaea would be expected to have higher GC content within their DNA, because GC pairings have three hydrogen bonds, while AT pairings have only two. Increasing the number of hydrogen bonds would increase the stability of the DNA, thereby increasing the energy required to separate the two strands of DNA.
Microbial metabolism is the means by which a microbe obtains the energy and nutrients (e.g. carbon) it needs to live and reproduce.Microbes use many different types of metabolic strategies and species can often be differentiated from each other based on metabolic characteristics.