Title: Archaea | Microbiology
Headings: Archaea
Archaea
Learning Objectives
Crenarchaeota
Think about It
Euryarchaeota
Think about It
Finding a Link Between Archaea and Disease
Key Concepts and Summary
Multiple Choice
Fill in the Blank
Think about It

Content: scientists have isolated its DNA from fossils that are 250 million years old. [ 5] Another species, Haloferax volcanii, shows a very sophisticated system of ion exchange, which enables it to balance the concentration of salts at high temperatures. Think about It
Where do Halobacteria live? Finding a Link Between Archaea and Disease
Archaea are not known to cause any disease in humans, animals, plants, bacteria, or in other archaea. Although this makes sense for the extremophiles, not all archaea live in extreme environments. Many genera and species of Archaea are mesophiles, so they can live in human and animal microbiomes, although they rarely do. As we have learned, some methanogens exist in the human gastrointestinal tract. Yet we have no reliable evidence pointing to any archaean as the causative agent of any human disease. Still, scientists have attempted to find links between human disease and archaea. For example, in 2004, Lepp et al.