432: Moses Microbes Maintain Moisture

This episode: Bacteria living in the driest place on earth have
ways to extract water from the mineral structures of rocks!


Download Episode (3.7 MB, 5.4 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Irkut lyssavirus


 


News item


Takeaways


Microbes living in extremely dry conditions have it tough.
Water is important both for the chemistry and structure of
all cells. Desert microbes are very good at acquiring and
holding on to the water they can find, but in places such
as the Atacama Desert in Chile, there's almost none
available.


 


However, microbes can be very resourceful. In this study,
phototrophs were discovered that can actually extract water
molecules bound up in the crystalline structure of the
mineral gypsum, and this allows them to survive in
hyperarid regions. They do this by secreting organic acid
molecules to etch the rock and release the water,
converting gypsum to anhydrite, which is a mineral with the
same chemical structure except without the water.


Journal Paper:
Huang W, Ertekin E, Wang T, Cruz L, Dailey M, DiRuggiero J,
Kisailus D. 2020. Mechanism of water extraction from gypsum
rock by desert colonizing microorganisms. Proc Natl Acad Sci
117:10681–10687.



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