Abstract: Extremophiles feature in unusual physiological and biochemical characteristics due to adaptation to their extreme habitats detrimental to the majority of life on earth. Alkalophilic microbes gain greater attentions for scientific research and industrial applications, including the screening of alkalophilic enzymes, identification of novel drug candidates, clarification of the molecular mechanism of their alkalophilicity and characterization of bacterial diversity. Alkalophilic Microbacterium oxydans belonging to microbacteriaceae has been seldom studied. In the present study, A strain of HSL10 isolated from an alkaline lake in Xinjiang and identified previously as Microbacterium oxydans was observed to accumulate characteristic yellow-pigments, showed a rapid growth rate and grew well at a quite wide range of pH with optimal growth at pH 10, indicating that it is an alkalophilic microorganism. Additionally, a genomic library of HSL10 containing 1920 recombinants was constructed for further cloning and functional characterization of interesting genes located on the genome of HSL10.

Key words: extremophiles, Microbacterium oxydans, alkalophilicity, genomic library