Desiccation tolerance of subaerial Nostoc species

What is it about?

Desiccation is one of the harshest environmental stresses severely affecting a wide range of cellular structural and functional processes. Although most organisms cannot survive in extremely arid environments, some species ranging from microbes and plants to animals (such as water bears) can recover from a typically fatal long period of complete dehydration. Hence, a topic of general interest is put forward: how to dry but not to die. Here we constructed knockout mutants of N. flagelliforme and found that a special gene cluster (hlips-cluster) composed of four tandemly repeated hlips is involved in desiccation tolerance.

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Photo by Maxime Jacquet on Unsplash

Photo by Maxime Jacquet on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This study provides insights into the mechanism of desiccation tolerance in photosynthetic organisms.