Methanogenic archaea affect the climate through their production of the greenhouse gas, methane. However, it is unclear how a changing climate and other anthropogenic influences impact methanogen physiology and consequent methane flux. The Great Salt Lake (GSL) is an environment that has been heavily impacted by human activity; more than doubling its salt concentration since the last methanogen was cultured from it in 1985. In this study, we enriched a novel methanogen, for which we propose the name Candidatus Methanohalophilus hillemani, from the GSL at a time when its salinity reached a historical high. Interestingly, Ca. M. hillemani does not increase expression of energy-conservation or osmo-tolerance proteins when challenged with salinity or oxygen. In contrast, Ca. M. hillemani prioritizes trace metal uptake and immune functions in response to the presence of the sulfate-reducing bacterium Desulfovermiculus . 16S rRNA gene amplicon data from GSL shore soils with extremely high and variable methane flux indicated the presence of Ca. M. hillemani. Our results show that Ca. M. hillemani is active when challenged with environmental stressors and contributes to the methane flux emanating from the GSL.

Crawling motility is a hallmark of eukaryotic cells and requires a dynamic actin cytoskeleton, regulated adhesion, and spatially organized signalling pathways1–3. Asgard archaea (phylum Promethearchae...

The cultivation of a group of methanogens illuminates their metabolic diversity and the evolution of archaea.

Monash Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences researchers have been successful in receiving Australian Research Council (ARC) grants under the Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) 2026 scheme ...

Many pathogens encode transporters that extract heme directly from host proteins. In this study, the authors demonstrate the utility of de novo-designed proteins in understanding the mechanism behind ...

Two distantly related methanogens shift the methanogenic pathway under nickel limitation, suggesting that methanogens adapt to changing bioavailability of nickel by rerouting electron flow between two...

Studies that touch on LGBT+ health, gender identity and DEI in the biomedical workforce could be terminated, according to documents obtained by Nature.

Eukaryotes are theorized to have originated from an archaeal phylum Promethearchaeota (formerly 'Asgard' archaea)1,2. The first cultured representatives revealed valuable insight3,4 but are distantly ...

Motility in Archaea is driven by a nanomachinery called the archaellum. So far, archaella have been exclusively described for the archaeal domain; however, a recent study reported the presence of arch...

In the ancient microbial Wood-Ljungdahl pathway, carbon dioxide (CO2) is fixed in a multistep process that ends with acetyl–coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA) synthesis at the bifunctional carbon monoxide dehydr...

Zhaonella formicivorans produces methanol, for a novel syntrophic interaction, without requiring methylated compounds as an input.

Here, Kropp et al. use cryo-electron microscopy and structural modeling to show that the enzyme [MoCu]-CO dehydrogenase interacts with its partner, the membrane-bound quinone-binding protein CoxG, to ...