COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SURFACE LAYER GLYCOPROTEINS AND GENES INVOLVED IN PROTEIN GLYCOSYLATION IN THE GENUS HALOFERAX

Yarden Shalev ¹ Shannon M. Soucy ² R. Thane Papke ² J. Peter Gogarten ³ Jerry Eichler ⁴ Uri Gophna ¹

¹School of Molecular and Cell Biology and Biotechnology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
²Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA
³Institute for Systems Genomics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA
⁴Department of Life Sciences, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheva, Israel

Within the Haloferax genus, both the surface (S)-layer protein, and the glycans that can decorate it, vary between species, which can potentially result in many different surface types, analogous to bacterial serotypes. This variation may mediate phenotypes, such as sensitivity to different viruses and mating preferences. Here, we describe S-layer glycoproteins found in multiple Haloferax strains and perform comparative genomics analyses of major and alternative glycosylation clusters of isolates from two coastal sites. We analyze the phylogeny of individual glycosylation genes and demonstrate that while the major glycosylation cluster tends to be conserved among closely related strains, the alternative cluster is highly variable. Thus, geographically- and genetically-related strains may exhibit diverse surface structures to such an extent that no two isolates present an identical surface profile.