Microbial genesis, life and death in glacial iceThis article is one of a selection of papers in the Special Issue on Polar and Alpine Microbiology.
Arguments are given that terrestrial RNA and DNA may have originated in a frozen environment more than 4 billion years ago. Scenarios are developed for atmospheric transport of microbes onto glacial ice, their adaptation to subzero temperatures in the ice, and their incorporation into one of three h...
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crcansciencepubl:10.1139/w08-117 2024-09-15T18:11:32+00:00 Microbial genesis, life and death in glacial iceThis article is one of a selection of papers in the Special Issue on Polar and Alpine Microbiology. Price, P. Buford 2009 http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/w08-117 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/full-xml/10.1139/W08-117 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/W08-117 en eng Canadian Science Publishing http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/page/about/CorporateTextAndDataMining Canadian Journal of Microbiology volume 55, issue 1, page 1-11 ISSN 0008-4166 1480-3275 journal-article 2009 crcansciencepubl https://doi.org/10.1139/w08-117 2024-08-22T04:08:43Z Arguments are given that terrestrial RNA and DNA may have originated in a frozen environment more than 4 billion years ago. Scenarios are developed for atmospheric transport of microbes onto glacial ice, their adaptation to subzero temperatures in the ice, and their incorporation into one of three habitats — liquid veins, mineral grain surfaces, or isolated inside 1 of the crystals that make up polycrystalline ice. The Arrhenius dependence of microbial metabolic rate on temperature is shown to match that required to repair damage owing to spontaneous DNA depurination and amino acid racemization. Even for the oldest glacial ice, microbial lifetime is shown not to be shortened by radiation damage from 238 U, 232 Th, or 40 K in mineral dust in ice, by phage-induced lysis, or by penetrating cosmic radiation. Instead, death of those cells adapted to the hostile conditions in glacial ice is probably due to exhaustion of available nutrients. By contrast, in permafrost microbial death is more likely due to α-particle radiation damage from U and Th in the soil and rocks intermixed with ice. For residence times in ice longer than a million years, spore formers may be unable to compete in longevity with vegetative cells that are able to repair DNA damage via survival metabolism. Article in Journal/Newspaper Ice permafrost Canadian Science Publishing Canadian Journal of Microbiology 55 1 1 11 |
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Canadian Science Publishing |
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Arguments are given that terrestrial RNA and DNA may have originated in a frozen environment more than 4 billion years ago. Scenarios are developed for atmospheric transport of microbes onto glacial ice, their adaptation to subzero temperatures in the ice, and their incorporation into one of three habitats — liquid veins, mineral grain surfaces, or isolated inside 1 of the crystals that make up polycrystalline ice. The Arrhenius dependence of microbial metabolic rate on temperature is shown to match that required to repair damage owing to spontaneous DNA depurination and amino acid racemization. Even for the oldest glacial ice, microbial lifetime is shown not to be shortened by radiation damage from 238 U, 232 Th, or 40 K in mineral dust in ice, by phage-induced lysis, or by penetrating cosmic radiation. Instead, death of those cells adapted to the hostile conditions in glacial ice is probably due to exhaustion of available nutrients. By contrast, in permafrost microbial death is more likely due to α-particle radiation damage from U and Th in the soil and rocks intermixed with ice. For residence times in ice longer than a million years, spore formers may be unable to compete in longevity with vegetative cells that are able to repair DNA damage via survival metabolism. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Price, P. Buford |
spellingShingle |
Price, P. Buford Microbial genesis, life and death in glacial iceThis article is one of a selection of papers in the Special Issue on Polar and Alpine Microbiology. |
author_facet |
Price, P. Buford |
author_sort |
Price, P. Buford |
title |
Microbial genesis, life and death in glacial iceThis article is one of a selection of papers in the Special Issue on Polar and Alpine Microbiology. |
title_short |
Microbial genesis, life and death in glacial iceThis article is one of a selection of papers in the Special Issue on Polar and Alpine Microbiology. |
title_full |
Microbial genesis, life and death in glacial iceThis article is one of a selection of papers in the Special Issue on Polar and Alpine Microbiology. |
title_fullStr |
Microbial genesis, life and death in glacial iceThis article is one of a selection of papers in the Special Issue on Polar and Alpine Microbiology. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Microbial genesis, life and death in glacial iceThis article is one of a selection of papers in the Special Issue on Polar and Alpine Microbiology. |
title_sort |
microbial genesis, life and death in glacial icethis article is one of a selection of papers in the special issue on polar and alpine microbiology. |
publisher |
Canadian Science Publishing |
publishDate |
2009 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/w08-117 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/full-xml/10.1139/W08-117 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/W08-117 |
genre |
Ice permafrost |
genre_facet |
Ice permafrost |
op_source |
Canadian Journal of Microbiology volume 55, issue 1, page 1-11 ISSN 0008-4166 1480-3275 |
op_rights |
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/page/about/CorporateTextAndDataMining |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1139/w08-117 |
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Canadian Journal of Microbiology |
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55 |
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1 |
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1 |
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11 |
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1810449134456406016 |