Low Salt Influences Archaellum-Based Motility, Glycerol Metabolism, and Gas Vesicles Biogenesis in

NRC-1 is an extremophile that grows optimally at 4.3 M NaCl concentration. In spite of being an established model microorganism for the archaea domain, direct comparisons between its proteome and transcriptome during osmotic stress are still not available. Through RNA-seq-based transcriptomics, we compared a low salt (2.6 M NaCl) stress condition with 4.3 M of NaCl and found 283 differentially expressed . The more commonly found classes of genes were: ABC-type transporters and transcription factors. Similarities, and most importantly, differences between our findings and previously published datasets in similar experimental conditions are discussed. We validated three important biological processes differentially expressed: gas vesicles production (due to down-regulation of , , , and ); archaellum formation (due to down-regulation of , , , and ); and glycerol metabolism (due to up-regulation of , , and ). Direct comparison between transcriptomics and proteomics showed 58% agreement between mRNA and protein level changes, pointing to post-transcriptional regulation candidates. From those genes, we highlight , encoding for the 50S ribosomal protein L15e, for which we hypothesize an ionic strength-dependent conformational change that guides post-transcriptional processing of its mRNA and, thus, possible salt-dependent regulation of the translation machinery.