The environmental adaptation of acidophilic archaea: promotion of horizontal gene transfer by genomic islands.

ABSTRACT: Acid mine drainage (AMD) is an extremely acidic leachate highly contaminated with metal ions, yet it harbors a significantly high abundance of archaea. Genomic islands (GIs), as one of the productions of horizontal gene transfer (HGT), play an important role in the environmental adaptation and evolutionary processes of archaea. However, the distribution, structure, and function of GI within the genomes of archaea remain poorly understood. In this study, through the bioinformatic analysis of archaea in AMD, including Ferroplasma acidiphilum ZJ isolated from laboratory and 25 acidophilic archaea collected from NCBI database, 176 GIs were predicted and annotated. Furthermore, we analyzed their structural features and provided insights into the role of HGT in environmental adaptation. The size

SUBMITTER: Qiu J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12302457 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature