Some archaea from the genus Sulfolobus are important for bioleaching of copper, where metal resistant microorganisms are required. Biofilm generation is one of the ways microorganisms cope with some stimuli in nature, including heavy metals. The response to external factors, particularly in the biofilm form of life, is still underexplored in archaea. To explore how model thermoacidophilic archaeon Saccharolobus solfataricus faces copper stress during this lifestyle, changes in biofilms were studied using crystal violet staining, confocal fluorescence microscopy, and qPCR approaches. It was found that biofilm formation reached a maximum at 0.5 mM Cu, before starting to decrease at higher metal concentrations. The morphology of biofilms at 0.5 mM Cu was observed to be different, displaying lower thickness, different sugar patterns, and higher amounts of cells compared to standard growing conditions. Furthermore, copA, which is responsive to intracellular Cu concentration, was downregulated in biofilm cells when compared with planktonic cells exposed to the same metal concentration. The latest results suggests that cells in biofilms are less exposed to Cu than those in planktonic culture. In a PolyP-deficient strain, Cu was not able to induce biofilm formation at 0.5 mM. In summary, the findings reported here suggest that the biofilm form of life confers S. solfataricus advantages to face stress caused by Cu.Biofilm formation remains a relatively unexplored topic in archaeal research. Therefore, this knowledge in model organisms such as S. solfataricus, and how they use it to face stress, could be of great importance to engineer organisms with improved capabilities to be applied in biotechnological processes, such as bioleaching of metals.
Keywords: Sulfolobales; biofilm; bioleaching; copper; metal resistance; stress response.