| Name: | SWATI Dubey |
| Affiliation: | Centre for Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Science |
| Conference ID : | ASI2024_103 |
| Title : | Microbial adaptation towards Mars habitation |
| Authors : | Swati DubeyA1, VyomB2, Nitin GuptaC2, Aloke KumarD2 |
| Authors Affiliation: |
1 Center for Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore-560012, India.
2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore-560012, India.
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| Mode of Presentation: | Poster |
| Abstract Category : | Sun, Solar System, Exoplanets, and Astrobiology |
| Abstract : | To the best of our knowledge, life evolved and exists only on our planet. Organisms of all scales have found their niche here; our interest lies in certain soil microbes that have evolved on Earth and testing their behavior in extra-terrestrial environment. We have chosen the microbe Sporosarcina pasteurii – an aerobic soil microbe that can cause a phenomenon known as microbial induced calcite precipitation (MICP). MICP is a natural phenomenon wherein these microbes through their enzyme activity break down urea (CO(NH2)2) leading to calcium carbonate (CaCO3) precipitation. Our intent is to find out the response of this microbe on Martian conditions and for this a Martian soil simulant (MGS-1) was chosen. Further, magnesium perchlorate (0-3%), was added to the simulant to make the soil analog closer to actual Martian conditions. Perchlorate (0.6-0.9% in the Martian soil) is an important stress stimulus to the bacteria and can hamper its biocementation ability. Hence, understanding its impact on bacterial growth and metabolism is crucial. For our study, we exposed our microbes to this simulant soil and explored the impact of perchlorate stress on it. Further, we evolved the bacteria into a perchlorate resistant strain with improved ability of bio-consolidation for making efficient Martian bricks: a crucial step towards habitation on Mars.
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