ABSTRACT
Although the unusual cellular properties of archaea from geothermal environments generate interest in genetic analysis, they simultaneously necessitate and hamper development of genetic techniques for these organisms. However, for a broad spectrum of questions regarding enzyme and cellular function at extremely high temperature, bacteria from geothermal environments offer practical alternatives for genetic analysis and manipulation. Over the past 20 years, researchers have successfully developed a number of genetic tools which take advantage of robust, heterotrophic growth of particular species, and the ability of certain bacterial genes and selections found in mesophilic bacteria to function, after limited modi cation, at high temperatures. As a result, several important techniques familiar to bacterial geneticists and molecular biologists can be used at temperatures up to 85ºC, enabling an increasing number of biological and biochemical aspects of extreme thermophiles to be investigated experimentally.
