Thermophilic and lithoautotrophic archaea such as Metallosphaera sedula occupy acidic, metal-rich environments and are used in biomining processes. Biotechnological approaches could accelerate these processes and improve metal recovery by biomining organisms, but systems for genetic manipulation in these organisms are currently lacking. To gain a better understanding of the interplay between metal resistance, autotrophy, and lithotrophic metabolism, a genetic system was developed for M. sedula and used to evaluate parameters governing the efficiency of copper bioleaching. Additionally, adaptive laboratory evolution was used to select for naturally evolved M. sedula cell lines with desirable phenotypes for biomining, and these adapted cell lines were shown to have increased bioleaching capacity and efficiency. Genomic methods were used to analyze mutations that led to resistance in the experimentally evolved cell lines, while transcriptomics was used to examine changes in stress-inducible gene expression specific to the environmental conditions.

嗜热和自养古细菌，如Sedula Metallosphaera sedula占据酸性，富含金属的环境，并用于生物开采过程。生物技术方法可以通过生物采矿来加速这些过程并提高金属的回收率，但是目前缺乏在这些生物中进行遗传操作的系统。为了更好地了解金属抗性，自养和石化代谢之间的相互作用，开发了一种用于景天分枝杆菌的遗传系统，并用于评估控制铜生物浸出效率的参数。此外，自适应实验室进化被用来选择自然进化的景天。具有理想表型的生物采矿细胞系，并且这些适应的细胞系显示具有增加的生物浸出能力和效率。基因组学方法用于分析导致实验进化的细胞系产生抗性的突变，而转录组学则用于检测特定于环境条件的应激诱导基因表达的变化。