Abstract

For years the debate about the possible contamination of space and other planets with microbes from Earth has been a hot topic. Furthermore, the discovery of sulfate minerals on the Martian surface make this planet suitable to colonization by microorganisms adapted to survive and grow under earthly extreme conditions. One of these microorganisms is Desulfotalea psychrophila, a microbe able to generate cellular energy by means of an enzyme known as the dissimilatory sulfate reductase. As all bacterial enzymes are encoded within the bacterium nucleic acids, we have designed experiments to study the ability of this microbe to survive, grow and metabolize under simulated Martian conditions of pressure, temperature and different concentrations of sulfate compounds.