Fonte Grand Prismatic Spring no Yellowstone National Park, EUA
A new research in Octopus and Conch Springs, Yellowstone, gives important clues about the adaptation of microbial life to variable oxygen conditions and can be useful in the pursuit of life beyond Earth.
A recent study by researchers at the State University of Montana suggests that microbial life in Yellowstone’s lower basin of the gels It can provide important information about how life has adapted to oxygen. The investigation in the magazine Nature Communicationsexamined the microbes that live in Octopus and Conch Springs, two geothermal environments with totally different oxygen and sulfide levels.
These microbial communities, which resemble ancient bacteria and archaea, develop in gelatinous structures of “serpentine” inside overheated water chains at about 88 ° C. Scientists believe these organisms can offer a glimpse of how primitive life sailed in the Earth’s changing atmosphere, particularly before and during the Great Oxidation event (GOE), about 2.5 billion years ago.
Octopus spring contains about 20 dissolved oxygen micromolar, significantly higher than the less than 1 micomolar found in Conch Spring. On the other hand, Conch Spring has over 120 toxic dissolved sulfide micromolar, while octopus spring has less than 2-3 micromolar. These conditions create a natural laboratory To study microbial evolution in variable oxygen environments, explains the.
Led by Geomicrobiologist Bill Inskeep, the research team analyzed microbial DNA and enzymatic activity to understand how these organisms interact with oxygen.
Their discoveries showed that the microbes in Octopus spring had a greater diversity and actively expressed genes for oxygen breathing. In contrast, although microbial diversity was smaller in Conch Spring, evidence suggests that some microbes have maintained latent oxygen processing capabilities, probably evolved to survival under extreme conditions.
A fundamental discovery was the presence of high affinity oxygenases – Enzymes that even work at nanomolar levels of oxygen. These enzymes were more actively expressed in the high conch spring sulfide environment, suggesting that primitive life forms may have used similar mechanisms to explore the minimum oxygen long before GOE.
Inskeep underlined the importance of Yellowstone’s natural conditions for the study of these adaptations, noting that the reproduction of such environments in a laboratory would be almost impossible. “The observation of these organisms in their natural environment allows us to Understand the exact geochemical conditions that allow your survival, ”he explained.
The study’s conclusions challenge the previous assumptions about the minimum oxygen levels needed for aerobic respiration, suggesting that primitive aerobic life on Earth may have survived with vestigial amounts of oxygen.
The implications extend beyond the earthsince similar microbial strategies could bear life in extreme environments in other parts of the universe.
