Application of a new constant high pressure incubation system (DeepIsoBUG) to obtain and characterise novel, high pressure, deep biosphere prokaryotes

最近，在地球深处发现了大量的细菌。这些细菌可能占地球上所有生命的50%以上。但我们对这些细菌几乎一无所知，因为我们只能在实验室里培养出一小部分用于研究的细菌。深海沉积物中含有大部分这种“深层生物圈”细菌，这里的压力是表面压力的300多倍。到目前为止，研究它们的唯一方法是将样本带到地表，并试图在大气压下对它们进行研究，这可能会杀死绝大多数它们。我们已经开发了一种系统，使细菌能够在高压下持续生长和研究。这可以与新的压力取心和处理系统一起使用，这样细菌就永远不会减压，这应该允许研究以前没有见过的深层细菌。我们将研究这些细菌，以找出它们的类型，它们如何在极端(高压、低能量和无氧)环境中生存，以及它们可能如何影响以前被认为是没有生命的地质环境中的深沉积物和岩石中的过程。这些深层沉积物可能有数千万年的历史，可能含有古老的细菌。它们甚至可能是地球上生命可能起源的环境。因此，了解这些细菌不仅会让我们了解地球上的生命，还可能让我们更多地了解生命是如何开始的。

Recently, huge numbers of bacteria kilometres deep in the Earth have been discovered. These bacteria may represent over 50% of all life on Earth. But we know almost nothing about these bacteria as we can only grow a tiny fraction of them in the laboratory for study. Deep ocean sediments contain most of these 'deep biosphere' bacteria and here pressures are enormous over 300 times that at the surface. Up till now the only way to study them was by bringing samples to the surface and trying to study them at atmospheric pressure, which might kill the vast majority of them. We have developed a system which enables bacteria to be consistently grown and studied under high pressure. This can be used with a new pressure coring and handling system so that bacteria are never depressurised which should allow deep bacteria not previously seen to be studied. We will investigate these bacteria to find out what type they are, how they survive in their extreme (high pressure, low energy and zero oxygen) environment and how they might influence processes in deep sediments and rocks which were previously thought to be geological environments devoid of life. These deep sediments can be tens of millions of years old and may contain ancient bacteria. They may even be an environment where life on Earth might have started. So understanding these bacteria will not only tell us about life on Earth it might also tell us more about how life began.