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Cover The complete genome sequence of Haloarcula marismortui, a halophilic archaeal organism from the Dead Sea. The 4,274,642-bp genome is organized into nine circular DNA molecules. The 4242 proteins encoded in this genome were functionally annotated through analysis of both their primary sequences as well as their predicted three-dimensional (3-D) structures. Comparative genomics approaches were applied to generate a network of evolutionarily conserved functional associations among proteins. This network provided further insights into physiological roles for proteins that could not be assigned any function merely on the basis of primary sequence or 3-D structure analysis. (For details on novel biological insights and evolutionary perspectives offered by analysis of this genome sequence, see Baliga et al., pp. 2221–2234)