Glycolysis as a determinant of genome and proteome composition of different extremophilic archaea species

Abstract

The archaea represents primitive earth dwellers confined mostly to very specialized and extreme habitats, and probably have evolved very early in the history of earth. Glycolysis is an excellent example of convergent evolution in archaea whereby a diversity of glucose degradation schemes exist. This study aims to unravel the strategies employed by different extremophilic species of archaea at the nucleotide and amino acid level to structure a genome as well as proteome, emphasizing particularly, on the glycolytic pathway of monosaccharide oxidation considering its antiquity and early appearance in evolution. We have tried to find out if linear sugar oxidation pathways like glycolysis in all its modified versions have somehow directed genome structuring in the extremophilic archaea. The study of comparative codon usage blueprint and codon pair preference might enable us to scrutinize the fact whether these organisms share any common codon or amino acid utilization outline or, this is entirely a function of their niche specific lifestyle.