10.22376/ijpbs.2019.10.1.p1-12 Volume 8 Issue 2 2017 (April - June) Haloarchaea are salt loving microorganisms isolated from saline environments including ancient salt deposits and rock salt. A few haloarchaeal species have been reported to produce bacteriorhodopsin (BR) which works as a light driven proton pump. A haloarchaeal strain lessThan i greaterThan Halostagnicola larsenii lessThan /i greaterThan IBS (MCC 2956) isolated from commercial Indian black salt (IBS) sample was employed for optimization of BR production. The organism produced 0.288 g l lessThan sup greaterThan -1 lessThan /sup greaterThan BR under optimum conditions as 3.42 M NaCl, pH 7-8, incubation temperature of 45 °C and incubation period of 9 days. The present report appears to be the first report on optimization of BR production using lessThan i greaterThan Halostagnicola larsenii lessThan /i greaterThan IBS strain. PRADNYA P. KANEKAR AND SNEHAL O. KULKARNI Haloarchaea, Bacteriorhodopsin production, Optimization, Indian black salt, Halostgnicola larsenii 618-621