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Alkalophiles: Environmental Distribution, Taxonomy, Physiology, Bioenergetics, Survival Mechanism, and Enzymes

Alkalophiles: Environmental Distribution, Taxonomy, Physiology, Bioenergetics, Survival Mechanism, and Enzymes

Vishal Arvindlal Mevada (Directorate of Forensic Science, Gandhinagar, India), Urvisha Himmatbhai Beladiya (Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat, India), Himani Rajendrakumar Gandhi (Christ College, Saurashtra University, Rajkot, India), Amitsinh Vijaysinh Mangrola (Shri Alpesh N. Patel Post Graduate Institute of Science and Research, Anand, India), and Rajesh Kanjibhai Patel (Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat, India)
Copyright: © 2022 |Pages: 30
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-9144-4.ch003
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Abstract

Alkalophiles are a class of extremophiles capable of survival in alkaline (pH roughly 8.5–11) environments, growing optimally around a pH of 10. At such high pH, the normal cellular functions are detrimentally affected for mesophilic organisms. The alkalophiles successfully manage stability of DNA, plasma membrane, and function of cytosolic enzymes, as well as other unfavorable physiological changes at such an elevated pH. A recent development in NextGen sequencing technology facilitates identifying uncultivable organisms amongst the extreme environments. In recent years, distribution of alkalophiles was reported from Soda Lake, marine environments, saline deserts, and natural thermal vents to natural water bodies. Although alkalophiles were first reported in 1889, their enzymatic and industrial applications still make them an interesting area of research. This chapter provides basic information on environmental distribution, taxonomy, physiology, bioenergetics, and survival mechanism and enzymes produced by alkalophilic organisms.
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Background

Alkalophiles are a class of extremophilic microbes capable of survival in alkaline (pH roughly 8.5–11) environments, growing optimally around a pH of 10. These are generally categorized into two major physiological groups: Alkali-tolerant organisms that show optimal growth in the pH range of 7.0–9.0 but cannot grow above pH 9.5 and alkalophilic organisms that show optimal growth between pH 10.0 and 12.0. Furthermore, the extreme alkalophiles subdivided into facultative alkalophiles, obligate alkalophiles etc. Along with that, alkali tolerant strictly anaerobic strains and obligatory anaerobic species reported in lake Magadi Kenya in 1988 (Norton and Grant, 1988).

As alkalophiles were able to sustain at high temperature under aerobic and anaerobic conditions, the enzymes produced by such organisms were alkalostable and thermostable. Such physiological features allow us to explore new applications in protein engineering and production of thermostable enzymes industries (Reed et al., 2013). Most of the alkalophiles are spore formers, the environmental effects would not directly affect in spore form (Tayyem et al., 2021). However, the organism faces a central problem in pH homeostasis during the growth at extreme pH values. The mechanism behind the survival has been extensively investigated in past decades. In Spite of that, the complete understanding still needs more attention to study undelaying adaptations, bioenergetics and survival mechanisms by extreme alkalophiles.

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