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Halophiles and protein adapation

StudyingHelp

shh

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 1

Joshalos

Original post by StudyingHelp

Can any one explain to me how having a high internal salt environment makes them adapted their environment

I've done some reading: I know they generally store K+ ions and something about acidic residues being favoured in their proteins over basic ones aswell smaller hydrophobic amino acids being favoured at the surface of the protein

But I still can't see the overall picture- I.e. why any of this makes them adapted ?

Halophiles are organisms which thrive in extreme levels of salinity.

Imagine if you placed a non-halophile in an extremely salty body of water. What would happen? Think in terms of water potential and osmosis.

Then use this to think why a high internal salt environment would be beneficial to an organism living in a high external salt environment.