The sulfur springs of Yellowstone Park in North America seem completely unsuitable for life, but there are still microorganisms surviving in these hot and sour waters. Now scientists know this can help them.
Yellowstone Lake and Geysers attract many tourists
Yellowstone National ParkThere are several geothermal sources and the water is basically boiling acid. A person cannot live long in such conditions, and last year the world was shocked by the news that a careless tourist fell into the acidic spring water. He died of burns and disappeared overnight.
However, some microorganisms live and even thrive in drinking water. To understand how they did this, an international team of researchers studied an ancient acid called acidokaldarius.
This microbe is a real champion of survival: archaeologists feel fine in an environment of 80 degrees Celsius and high acidity. Furthermore, acidocaldarius itself produces pure sulfuric acid when sulfuric acid is oxidized.
Under cryomicroscopes, the researchers studied these mysterious cells and discovered in their composition a previously unknown protein, , which forms the very strong hair structure. The scientists isolated the protein from cells, froze it at extremely low temperatures, and imaged it with a see-through electron microscope . This allows the creation of a complete three-dimensional protein image with atomic resolution.
It turns out that hair is made up of different sections, shaped like tadpoles , with the tail inserted into the head of the next section. Thanks to these "hairs," individual archaeal cells combine into a strong biofilm: this allows them to maintain contact between cells, exchange genetic material, and make the environment more acidic to ward off possible competitors.
Protein 'threads' actually stitch individual archaea together
The new data will not only give us a better understanding of how tiny organisms survive in extreme conditions, but could also help develop powerful and degradable nanomaterials.
The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.
