Abstract 1342 Investigating the Functional Significance of Inteins in Halobacterium salinarum

We are interested in studying mobile genes, called inteins, found in haloarchaea. Inteins are genes that interrupt coding segments of DNA and catalyze their own post-translational excision through the process of protein splicing. There are two inteins found in the archaeal halophile Halobacterium salinarum, interrupting the genes for DNA PolII and for cdc-21. In order to determine if these intein genes play a role in H. salinarum, we have created two transgenic H. salinarum strains that each lack one of the inteins via a pop-in/pop-out homologous recombination process. We are currently comparing the fitness of the intein-lacking strains with the wild type through a direct competition assay. Our preliminary data suggest that the PolII intein may play a positive role in organism fitness, as the strain that lacks the intein displays a growth defect in comparison to the intein-containing strain. We are also preparing a H. salinarum strain that lacks both of the inteins. We thank the National Institutes of Health, NIGMS (Grant 1R15GM132817-01) for supporting our research.