Molecules essential for life can adapt to Mars brines

May 20. () –

Researchers at the University of Minnesota studied in the laboratory how unique geochemical environment of Mars it could shape life in the past or present.

The team, led by Assistant Professor Aaron Engelhart, examined two types of ribonucleic acids (RNA, molecules that are essential for known living organisms) and protein enzymes from Earth to see if and how they worked in perchlorate brines. They publish results in Nature Communications.

All RNAs under study they worked surprisingly well in perchlorate brines. Protein enzymes did not perform as well as RNAs in the perchlorate brines. Only proteins that evolved in Earth’s extreme environments (in organisms that live at high temperatures or in high salt concentrations) could work.

In perchlorate brines, RNA enzymes can do things they don’t normally do on Earth, such as generating new molecules that incorporate chlorine atoms. This reaction had not been observed before by scientists.

EXTREME TOLERANCE TO SALT

“Taken together, these results show that RNA is exceptionally well adapted to the very salty environments found on Mars and could be found on other bodies in space,” Engelhart said. it’s a statement. “This extreme salt tolerance could influence how life may have formed on Mars in the past, or how it is forming under current conditions on Mars.”

In recent years, NASA missions have found evidence of abundant perchlorate salts on the Martian surface. Perchlorate salts can accumulate and combine with water from the atmosphere to form concentrated solutions called brines. Because liquid water is so essential to life, NASA has described its strategy in the search for life on Mars as “following the water.” As a result, perchlorate brines have attracted a lot of attention.