Now we are going to discuss all major characteristics and types of Archaebacteria along with examples and importance of archaebacteria. Archaebacteria are members of kingdom monera and they are primitive organisms present on our earth and they show various features which are similar to the bacteria.
Before the discovery of archaebacteria it was imaginary to have such organisms who can live in such extreme conditions like high pressure around 200 atmospheric pressure and so high temperature more than 200 degree centigrade and tolerance of high salinity.
Table of Contents
Characteristics of Archaebacteria:
Archaebacteria show resemblance with bacteria but in many aspects they are different from the other members of monera while they also have some similarities with eukaryotes, we will discuss all general characteristics of Archaebacteria below.
- Archaebacteria are able to grow in the oxygen free anaerobic environment so they can perform methanogenesis and they are facultative anaerobes or obligate anaerobes.
- Their special rigid cell wall gives them protection against different chemicals like lysozyme which present in our different body fluids to destroy the cell wall of different microorganisms, because their cell wall has pseudomurein which gives them protection against lysozyme.
- As they are prokaryotes so different membrane bound cell organelles like chloroplast, mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum are absent in Archaebacteria.
- They are resistant to most of the antibodies because they have antibiotic resistant genes present in them and they can tolerate very high temperature and very high pressure, they can tolerate high concentration salinity.
Types of Archaebacteria:
Depending upon various parameters we can classify archaebacteria into some groups which we will discuss below one by one.
Crenarchaeota:
thermophiles, hyperthermophiles, thermoacidophiles are archaebacteria which can tolerate very high temperatures more than 200 degree centigrade due to presence of a special protein. They can easily live in very warm springs and in deep sea water because of the presence of the special protein in Crenarchaeota.
Euryarchaeota:
Member archaebacteria of the group euryarchaeota like halophiles and methanogens can tolerate habitat which is very alkaline in nature and they are able to produce methane.
Korarchaeota:
Members of the group Korarchaeota like hyperthermophiles are known as the oldest organisms that lived on early earth and they developed from common ancestors of Crenarchaeota and Euryarchaeota.
Thaumarchaeota:
They are a special type of archaebacteria and they are able to oxidise ammonia which is not observed in other organisms generally.
Nanoarchaeota:
They are a special group of archaebacteria of Ignicoccus genus who generally show obligate symbiont.
Examples of Archaebacteria:
Now we will discuss some examples of archaebacteria with their characters which will help you to understand their characteristics more easily.
Methanobrevibacter smithii:
They are common archaebacteria present in the human gut and they are known for methane production. They can prevent colon cancer so they are frequently observed in the gut of a person suffering from colon cancer and they can help to digest complex plant sugar in our intestines.
Lokiarchaeota:
They are also known as Loki’s castle who can live easily in deep sea vents and they can tolerate high levels of temperature due to the presence of specific genes in their genome. A peculiar feature of Lokiarcheota is due to the presence of some eukaryotic gene in them but they are most similar to those of eukaryotes.
Importance of Archaebacteria:
We can use methane as gaseous fuel for cooking and other purposes which is major components of biogas. Most of the archaebacteria are methanogen and they can decompose different types of organic materials to produce methane through the process of methanogenesis so archaebacteria can be used to produce fuel like methane.
They are the most primitive living organisms on our earth and they were able to live on primitive earth which was very extreme due to their tolerance for high temperature and pressure.
Reference: Characteristics and Types of Archaebacteria
Read More: Apoptosis General Overview
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