Signal Transduction in the Archaea
Peter J. Kennelly
from: Archaea: New Models for Prokaryotic Biology (Edited by: Paul Blum). Caister Academic Press, U.K. (2008)
Abstract
Adaptation to changing internal and environmental circumstances requires that living organisms develop mechanisms for monitoring relevant variables and triggering compensatory changes in the functional status of target proteins. The process by which sensory information is received and translated into cellular effects is called signal transduction. Mining of archaeal genomes for homologues of well-known bacterial and eucaryal signal transduction proteins has yielded surprisingly little. While some archaeons acquired copies of the sensor-response machinery that guide the chemotactic swimming of many Bacteria, the only recognizable signal transmission modules conserved throughout the Archaea are the eukaryotic protein kinases, the class II adenylate cyclases, the Pat-like protein acetylases, and several allosteric feedback loops. As the sensor response needs of the Archaea would appear to be, a priori, comparable to those of other microorganisms, it appears likely that members of the third domain of life have developed unique paradigms for transducing signals and/or novel ways for exploit known mechanisms read more ...
