Question

What is Halobacterium?

Answer 1

Halobacteria are halophilic microorganisms. Halophilic organisms are those organisms that need salt rich environments to live in. They can be found in highly salinated lakes such like the Great Salt Lake, the Dead Sea or Lake Magadi. Halobacteria are the only photosynthetic archaeon that has a completely different type of photosynthesis where no chlorophyll is used in large protein complex to activate an electron which is the case in plants and bacteria. These halobacteria uses a single protein called  bacteriorhodopsin where the light energy absorbed by retinal is in the form of Vitamin A to activate a hydrogen ion. Bacteriorhodopsin is opaque to the longer-wavelength ultraviolet.

Halobacterium are aerobic.They are rod shaped archaea enveloped by a single lipid bilayer membrane which is surrounded by glycoprotein. Under aerobic conditions, they grow on amino acids and under aerobic conditions they grow if they are supported by amino acids so that arginine fermentation occurs.