Exploration of haloarchaea for their potential applications in food industry

Extremophiles are a major source for many industrially important biomolecules. Haloarchaea have been extensively studied for their ability to grow in extreme environments and the array of metabolites especially osmolytes they produce with resistance to extreme physical and chemical conditions. In the present study, we have studied the haloarchaeal isolates for their ability to produce industrially important biomolecules like—proteases, amylases, surfactants, antifreeze and antidesiccation proteins. The haloarchaea used in this study were isolated from fish sauce fermentation broth and belonged to Halorubrum sp. SS1 (KY053875.1), Halobacterium sp. SS2 (KY053876.1), Halococcus sp. AMS1 (KU995303.1), Halorhabdus sp. AMS6 (KU995310.1) and Halobacterium sp. SFF3 (KY053871.1). All the archaea isolated in this report had negligible amylase and surfactant activities but showed marginal protease activity. The isolates were also found to be producing significant antifreeze protein stable till 192 h and desiccation tolerant till 240 min of studies. This is the first report of microbial extracellular proteins exhibiting antidesiccation and antifreeze properties, thus introducing a new family of industrially important microbial proteins. These applications have immense potential in food preservation and processing.