Antarctic DNA moving forward: genomic plasticity and biotechnological potential

Abstract

Antarctica is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, where only cold-adapted organisms survive. It has been frequently cited as a pristine place, but it has a highly diverse microbial community that is continually seeded by nonindigenous microorganisms. In addition to the intromission of 'alien' microorganisms, global warming strongly affects microbial Antarctic communities, changing the genes (qualitatively and quantitatively) potentially available for horizontal gene transfer. Several mobile genetic elements have been described in Antarctic bacteria (including plasmids, transposons, integrons, and genomic islands), and the data support that they are actively involved in bacterial evolution in the Antarctic environment. In addition, this environment is a genomic source for the identification of novel molecules, and many investigators have used culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches to identify cold-adapted proteins. Some of them are described in this review. We also describe studies for the design of new recombinant technologies for the production of 'difficult' proteins.