Stress Recovery and Growth Potential of Methanogenic Archaea under Selected Enceladus-like Conditions: Implications for Astrobiological Habitability and Planetary Protection.

Kurzfassung

The search for potentially habitable environments beyond Earth is a central topic in astrobiology. Within the Solar System, icy moons such as Saturn’s moon Enceladus are of particular interest, as the Cassini-Huygens mission detected water, salts, carbonates, carbon dioxide, molecular hydrogen, and methane in plume material. These findings suggest that Enceladus may provide chemical conditions relevant for microbial energy metabolism. Methanogenic archaea are suitable model organisms in this context because they produce methane and can use substrates such as molecular hydrogen and carbon dioxide, acetate, or methylated compounds. In this study, the growth and stress survival of three methanogens, Methanococcoides burtonii, Methanosarcina soligelidi, and Methanobacterium subterraneum, were investigated under selected Enceladus-like conditions. [...]