Base sequence homology and renaturation studies of the deoxyribonucleic acid of extremely halophilic bacteria.

The genetic relatedness among various strains of halophilic bacteria has been assessed by deoxyribonucleic acid-deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA-DNA) duplex formation and ribosomal ribonucleic acid (RNA) hybridization. All of the strains of extremely halophilic rods are closely related, and the extent of divergence of base sequence is similar for the major and minor DNA components. Parallel experiments with ribosomal RNA revealed a relationship between the extremely halophilic rods and cocci and a more distant relationship to moderate halophiles and to a photosynthetic extreme halophile. Renaturation studies of halophile DNA exclude the possibility that the satellite DNA represents multiple copies of a small episomal element. The kinetics of DNA renaturation show that the genome size of the extreme and moderate halophiles is similar to that of Escherichia coli.