Sección Bioquímica, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay.
FEMS Microbiol Lett. 2012 Jun;331(1):1-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1574-6968.2012.02531.x. Epub 2012 Mar 12.
Antarctica is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, where only cold-adapted organisms survive. It has been frequently cited as a pristine place, but it has a highly diverse microbial community that is continually seeded by nonindigenous microorganisms. In addition to the intromission of 'alien' microorganisms, global warming strongly affects microbial Antarctic communities, changing the genes (qualitatively and quantitatively) potentially available for horizontal gene transfer. Several mobile genetic elements have been described in Antarctic bacteria (including plasmids, transposons, integrons, and genomic islands), and the data support that they are actively involved in bacterial evolution in the Antarctic environment. In addition, this environment is a genomic source for the identification of novel molecules, and many investigators have used culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches to identify cold-adapted proteins. Some of them are described in this review. We also describe studies for the design of new recombinant technologies for the production of 'difficult' proteins.
南极洲是最寒冷、最干燥、风力最大的大陆，只有适应寒冷的生物才能生存。它经常被认为是一个原始的地方，但它拥有高度多样化的微生物群落，这些微生物群落不断被非本土微生物所播种。除了“外来”微生物的传入外，全球变暖强烈影响着南极微生物群落，改变了可能用于水平基因转移的基因（定性和定量）。在南极细菌中已经描述了几种移动遗传元件（包括质粒、转座子、整合子和基因组岛），这些数据表明它们积极参与了南极环境中细菌的进化。此外，这种环境是鉴定新型分子的基因组来源，许多研究人员已经使用依赖培养和非依赖培养的方法来鉴定适应寒冷的蛋白质。其中一些在本综述中进行了描述。我们还描述了用于设计新的重组技术以生产“困难”蛋白质的研究。
