To better understand the extremely halophilic archaeon Halobacterium species NRC-1, we analyzed its soluble proteome by two-dimensional liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry. A total of 888 unique proteins were identified with a ProteinProphet probability (P) between 0.9 and 1.0. To evaluate the biochemical activities of the organism, the proteomic data were subjected to a biological network analysis using our BMSorter software. This allowed us to examine the proteins expressed in different biomodules and study the interactions between pertinent biomodules. Interestingly an integrated analysis of the enzymes in the amino acid metabolism and citrate cycle networks suggested that up to eight amino acids may be converted to oxaloacetate, fumarate, or oxoglutarate in the citrate cycle for energy production. In addition, glutamate and aspartate may be interconverted from other amino acids or synthesized from citrate cycle intermediates to meet the high demand for the acidic amino acids that are required to build the highly acidic proteome of the organism. Thus this study demonstrated that proteome analysis can provide useful information and help systems analyses of organisms. Halobacterium species NRC-1 is an extremely halophilic archaeon containing a highly acidic proteome with a median pI of 4.9, a property that is essential to the maintenance of the solubility and function of the proteins in a high salinity environment of about 5 M salts (1, 2). Genome sequence analysis has revealed 2,630 putative protein-coding genes in the 2,571,010-bp genome (2). Among the predicted proteins, 1,658 can be matched to sequences in public databases. Of the matches, 1,067 are proteins of known or predicted function, and 591 are proteins of unknown function. The possession of a relatively small and completely sequenced genome, the availability of a full arsenal of genetic manipulation tools, and the relative ease of culture make Halobacterium sp. NRC-1 an attractive systems biology model organism of the domain Archaea (3-6).The genomes of Halobacterium species are extremely unstable (7-9). Early studies of Halobacterium sp. NRC-1 (also known as Halobacterium halobium) and the closely related Halobacterium salinarium discovered unusually high spontaneous mutation frequencies of 0.01% for the production of bacteriorhodopsin-or bacterioruberin-deficient phenotypes and a more striking 1% for partial or total gas vesicle-deficient phenotypes. The species is also noteworthy for the large number of insertion sequence elements that are harbored in this unstable genome. Molecular genetic analysis of the bacteriorhodopsin-and gas vesicle-deficient mutants established a relationship between transposable insertion sequence-mediated insertional inactivation or deletions of structural or regulatory genes and the high mutant rates (10 -16). Upon the completion of the genome sequence, DNA analysis revealed the presence of 91 copies of insertion sequence elements belonging to 12 families in the Halobacteri...