Antarctic fungi survive Martian circumstances on the Worldwide House Station

The McMurdo Dry Valleys, positioned within the Antarctic Victoria Land, are thought of to be essentially the most comparable earthly equal to Mars. They make up one of many driest and most hostile environments on our planet, the place robust winds scour away even snow and ice. Solely so-called cryptoendolithic microorganisms, able to surviving in cracks in rocks, and sure lichens can face up to such harsh climatological circumstances.
A number of years in the past a crew of European researchers travelled to those distant valleys to gather samples of two species of cryptoendolithic fungi: Cryomyces antarcticus and Cryomyces minteri. The goal was to ship them to the Worldwide House Station (ISS) for them to be subjected to Martian circumstances and house to watch their responses.
The tiny fungi had been positioned in cells (1.4 centimetres in diameter) on a platform for experiments referred to as EXPOSE-E, developed by the European House Company to face up to excessive environments. The platform was despatched within the House Shuttle Atlantis to the ISS and positioned exterior the Columbus module with the assistance of an astronaut from the crew led by Belgian Frank de Winne.
For 18 months half of the Antarctic fungi had been uncovered to Mars-like circumstances. Extra particularly, that is an environment with 95% CO2, 1.6% argon, 0.15% oxygen, 2.7% nitrogen and 370 elements per million of H2O; and a strain of 1,000 pascals. Via optical filters, samples had been subjected to ultra-violet radiation as if on Mars (increased than 200 nanometres) and others to decrease radiation, together with separate management samples.
“Essentially the most related end result was that greater than 60% of the cells of the endolithic communities studied remained intact after ‘publicity to Mars’, or fairly, the steadiness of their mobile DNA was nonetheless excessive,” highlights Rosa de la Torre Noetzel from Spain’s Nationwide Institute of Aerospace Know-how (INTA), co-researcher on the mission.

Part of rock colonised by cryptoendolithic microorganisms and the Cryomyces fungi in quartz crystals below an electron microscope. / S. Onofri et al.
The scientist explains that this work, printed within the journal ‘Astrobiology’, kinds a part of an experiment referred to as the Lichens and Fungi Experiment (LIFE), “with which we’ve got studied the destiny or future of assorted communities of lithic organisms throughout a long-term voyage into house on the EXPOSE-E platform.”
“The outcomes assist to evaluate the survival skill and long-term stability of microorganisms and bioindicators on the floor of Mars, info which turns into basic and related for future experiments centred across the seek for life on the pink planet,” states De la Torre.
Additionally lichens from Gredos and the Alps
Researchers from the LIFE experiment, coordinated from Italy by Professor Silvano Onofri from the College of Tuscany, have additionally studied two species of lichens (Rhizocarpon geographicum and Xanthoria elegans) which might face up to excessive high-mountain environments. These have been gathered from the Sierra de Gredos (Avila, Spain) and the Alps (Austria), with half of the specimens additionally being uncovered to Martian circumstances.
One other vary of samples (each lichens and fungi) was subjected to an excessive house setting (with temperature fluctuations of between -21.5 and +59.6 ºC, galactic-cosmic radiation of as much as 190 megagrays, and a vacuum of between 10-7 to 10-4 pascals). The impact of the impression of ultra-violet extraterrestrial radiation on half of the samples was additionally examined.
After the year-and-a-half-long voyage, and the start of the experiment on Earth, the 2 species of lichens ‘uncovered to Mars’ confirmed double the metabolic exercise of those who had been subjected to house circumstances, even reaching 80% extra within the case of the species Xanthoria elegans.
The outcomes confirmed subdued photosynthetic exercise or viability within the lichens uncovered to the tough circumstances of house (2.5% of samples), much like that offered by the fungal cells (4.11%). On this house setting, 35% of fungal cells had been additionally seen to have stored their membranes intact, an additional signal of the resistance of Antarctic fungi.

The EXPOSE-E platform, the place Antarctic fungi and lichens are positioned, and members of the crew earlier than sending it to the Worldwide House Station. / S. Onofri et al.
References:
Silvano Onofri, Jean-Pierre de Vera, Laura Zucconi, Laura Selbmann, Giuliano Scalzi, Kasthuri J. Venkateswaran, Elke Rabbow, Rosa de la Torre, Gerda Horneck. “Survival of Antarctic Cryptoendolithic Fungi in Simulated Martian Circumstances On Board the Worldwide House Station”. Astrobiology 15(12): 1052-9, December 2015. DOI: 10.1089/ast.2015.1324.
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