The physiological response of living cells when adapting to a medium of low water activity (aw),

containing either salts or nonionic solutes, entails the accumulation of osmolytes in the cytoplasm. This leads to turgor adjustment and prevents cell dehydration. Two major strategies have been developed in nature: the salt-in-cytoplasm type and the organic-osmolyte type buy PLX3397 (Galinski & Trüper, 1994; Roberts, 2005; Empadinhas & da Costa, 2008). The organic-osmolyte strategy, widely distributed in all three domains of life, involves the uptake or the synthesis of low-molecular-weight, water soluble, organic compounds, known as compatible solutes (Brown, 1976), which allow the cell to maintain macromolecular and cellular functions in highly saline media without changing its cytoplasmic environment. From the variety of known organic compounds dealing with osmoadaptative responses, β-amino acids and derivatives are relatively rare and their synthesis

is an unusual strategy for coping with osmotic stress, which has only been detected in a few organisms (Henrichs & Cuhel, 1985; Robertson et al., 1990; Sowers et al., 1990; DasSarma & Arora, 2002; Roberts, 2005; Empadinhas & da Costa, 2008). In particular, the N-acetylated diamino acid Nɛ-acetyl-β-lysine (NeABL) was previously considered an unusual compatible solute of methanogenic Archaea (Sowers et al., 1990; Pflüger et al., 2003; Roberts,

2005; Empadinhas & da Costa, 2008). It has been found in a broad range of mesophilic and a few thermophilic CH5424802 molecular weight species belonging to the Methanococcales, Methanomicrobiales and Methanosarcinales orders. In methanogenic Archaea, the compound is synthesized by two enzymes. The first step involves forming β-lysine from α-lysine through the action of a lysine-2,3-aminomutase (Ruzicka et al., 2000). The second step is mediated by a β-lysine acetyltransferase, which acetylates the amino group in the ɛ-position. This sequence of events transforms the basic amino acid lysine into a zwitterionic, uncharged and highly water-soluble molecule (Roberts, 2005). The genes encoding Aurora Kinase these two enzymes have been identified in methanogenic Archaea and shown to be essential for the biosynthesis of NeABL using mutational inactivation experiments (Pflüger et al., 2003). The first investigations into the osmoadaptation of green sulfur bacteria (GSB) species (Welsh & Herbert, 1993) were performed with the halophilic Chlorobium vibrioforme 6030 (currently known as Prosthecochloris vibrioformis DSM 260T) and the freshwater strain Chlorobium limicola Kios 6230 (currently known as Chlorobaculum thiosulfatophilum DSM 249T). The disaccharide trehalose was found to be the only solute synthesized when the strains were grown at 3% NaCl.