Preface.- Part I Thermophiles in the Environment.- 1 Diversity of hot environments and thermophilic microbes, D. Mehta and T. Satyanarayana.- 2 Exploring the ecology of thermophiles from Australia's Great Artesian Basin during the genomic era, C.D. Ogg, M.D. Spanevello and B.K.C. Patel.- 3 Hot environments from Antarctica: source of thermophiles and hyperthermophiles, with potential biotechnological applications, P.A. Flores, M.J. Amenabar and J.M. Blamey.- 4 Bacterial and biochemical properties of newly invented aerobic, high-temperature compost, T. Yoshii, T. Moriya and T. Oshima.- 5 Role of thermophilic microflora in composting, S. Rawat and B.N. Johri.- 6 Metal remediation by thermophilic microorganisms, P. Sar, S.K. Kazy, D.Paul and A.Sarkar.- 7 CO-oxidizing anaerobic thermophilic prokaryotes, T. Sokolova and A. Lebedinsky.- 8 Biomineralization in thermal environments, K. Doi and Y. Fujino.- 9 Phylogeny and biological features of thermophiles, T. Itoh and T. Iino.- 10 Biology, biodiversity and application of thermophilic viruses, K. Uldahl and Xu Peng.- Part II Genomics, metagenomics and biotechnology.- 11 Genomics of thermophilic bacteria and archaea, T.Sato and H. Atomi.- 12 Comparative genomics of thermophilic bacteria and archaea, S. Akanuma, S. Yokobori and A. Yamagishi.- 13 Host-vector system in thermophiles, T. Inoue and Y.Sako.- 14 Molecular chaperones in thermophilic eubacteria and archaea, M. Sahlanand M. Yohda.- 15 Heterologous Production of Thermostable Proteins and Enzymes, H.Sakuraba and T. Ohshima.- 16 Discovery of thermostable enzymes from hot environmental samples by metagenomic approaches, N. Kurosawa.- 17 DNA polymerases and DNA ligases, S. Ishino and Y. Ishino.- 18 Molecular diversity of biotechnological relevance of thermophilic actinobacteria, S.P. Singh, R.J. Shukla and B.A. Kikani.- 19 Mechanisms of thermostability adopted by thermophilic proteins and their use in white biotechnology, J. Littlechild, H. Novak and C. Sayer.- 20 Starch-hydrolyzing enzymes from thermophiles, S. Elleuche and G. Antranikian.- 21 Thermostable archaeal and bacterial pullulanases and amylopullulanases, M. Nisha and T. Satyanarayana.- 22 Sugar metabolic enzymes, K. Yoshimune and Y. Kawarabayasi.- 23 Restriction enzymes from thermophiles, R. Kumar, P. Sharma and N. Capalash.- 24 Microbial chitinases: natural sources, mutagenesis and directed evolution to obtain thermophilic counterparts, P.V.S.R.N. Sarma, J. MadhuPrakash, S.N. Das, M. Kaur, P. Purushotham and A.R. Podile.- 25 Phytases and phosphatases of thermophiles: production, characteristics and multifarious applications, B. Singh and T. Satyanarayana.- 26 Pectinases of thermophilic microbes, S.S. Dhiman, R. Mahajan and J. Sharma.- 27 Developments in thermostable gellanlyase, M. Kambourova and A. Derekova.- 28 Lignocellulolytic system of thermophilic fungi and actinomycetes: structure regulation and biotechnological applications, M. J. Pocas-Fonseca, R.W.M. Matos and T. M. Mello-de-Sousa.- 29 Cellulases of thermophilic microbes, L.V. Rao, A.K. Chandel, G. Chandrasekhar, A.V. Rodhe and J. Sridevi.- 30 Xylanases from thermophilic fungi: classification, structure and case study of Melanocarpus albomyces, S. Mishra, V. Sahai, V. S. Bisaria, R. Biswas, G. Gupta and S. Nakra.- 31 Thermostable bacterial xylanases, V. Kumar, D. Verma, A. Archana and T. Satyanarayana.- 32 Thermostable proteases, R. Sinha and S. K. Khare.- 33 Microbial keratinases: diversity and applications, R. Gupta, E. Tiwary, R. Sharma, R. Rajput and N. Nair. 34 Biocatalysis through thermostable lipases: adding flavor to chemistry, R. Sharma, V. Thakur, M. Sharma and N. Birkeland.