Does Ice Dissolve or Does Halite Melt?

Brady, John B.

doi:10.5408/0022-1368-40.2.116

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Indeed, several studies have shown that metastable hypersaline liquid water bodies containing high amount of chaotropic ions could be present beneath the southern pole ice cap (Lauro et al, 2021; Orosei et al, 2018) or under the regolith in subsurface environments (Abotalib & Heggy, 2019; Clifford et al, 2010; McEwen et al, 2011; Rivera‐Valentín et al, 2020). As confirmed by experimental studies (Fischer et al, 2014), such water systems would require to be hypersaline in order to remain liquid under the low temperatures of Martian environments (Brady, 1992). A notable feature of halophilic organisms is their capacity to survive for long periods when trapped in salt crystals or upon salt deliquescence (Crits‐Christoph et al, 2016; Favreau, 2023; Favreau et al, 2022; Micheluz et al, 2022), some studies even suggesting a preservation over geological ages (Hallsworth, 2022; Schreder‐Gomes et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of chaotropic salts on global proteome stability in halophilic archaea: Implications for life signatures on Mars

Carré

González

Girard

et al. 2023

Environmental Microbiology

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Halophilic archaea thriving in hypersaline environments, such as salt lakes, offer models for putative life in extraterrestrial brines such as those found on Mars. However, little is known about the effect of the chaotropic salts that could be found in such brines, such as MgCl2, CaCl2 and (per)chlorate salts, on complex biological samples like cell lysates which could be expected to be more representative of biomarkers left behind putative extraterrestrial life forms. We used intrinsic fluorescence to study the salt dependence of proteomes extracted from five halophilic strains: Haloarcula marismortui, Halobacterium salinarum, Haloferax mediterranei, Halorubrum sodomense and Haloferax volcanii. These strains were isolated from Earth environments with different salt compositions. Among the five strains that were analysed, H. mediterranei stood out as a results of its high dependency on NaCl for its proteome stabilization. Interestingly, the results showed contrasting denaturation responses of the proteomes to chaotropic salts. In particular, the proteomes of strains that are most dependent or tolerant on MgCl2 for growth exhibited higher tolerance towards chaotropic salts that are abundant in terrestrial and Martian brines. These experiments bridge together global protein properties and environmental adaptation and help guide the search for protein‐like biomarkers in extraterrestrial briny environments.

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