Journal
ASTROBIOLOGY
Volume 16, Issue 12, Pages 964-976Publisher
MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC
DOI: 10.1089/ast.2016.1587
Keywords
Barophile; Extremophilic microorganisms; Habitability; Mars; Special Region
Funding
- NASA Astrobiology: Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology program [NNX08AO15G]
- NASA Planetary Protection Research program [NNX12AJ84G]
- NASA [43425, NNX08AO15G, 95807, NNX12AJ84G] Funding Source: Federal RePORTER
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Bacterial growth at low pressure is a new research area with implications for predicting microbial activity in clouds and the bulk atmosphere on Earth and for modeling the forward contamination of planetary surfaces like Mars. Here, we describe experiments on the recovery and identification of 20 species of bacterial hypobarophiles (def., growth under hypobaric conditions of approximately 1-2 kPa) in 10 genera capable of growth at 0.7 kPa. Hypobarophilic bacteria, but not archaea or fungi, were recovered from diverse soils, and high numbers of hypobarophiles were recovered from Arctic and Siberian permafrost soils. Isolates were identified through 16S rRNA sequencing to belong to the genera Bacillus, Carnobacterium, Clostridium, Cryobacterium, Exiguobacterium, Paenibacillus, Rhodococcus, Streptomyces, and Trichococcus. The highest population of culturable hypobarophilic bacteria (5.1 x 10(4) cfu/g) was recovered from Colour Lake soils from Axel Heiberg Island in the Canadian Arctic. In addition, we extend the number of hypobarophilic species in the genus Serratia to six type-strains that include S. ficaria, S. fonticola, S. grimesii, S. liquefaciens, S. plymuthica, and S. quinivorans. Microbial growth at 0.7 kPa suggests that pressure alone will not be growth-limiting on the martian surface, or in Earth's atmosphere up to an altitude of 34 km.
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