According to Xinhua News Agency, “Experiment 3”, how many life forms exist on the earth? Scientists have most recently determined that there are three: eukaryotes, bacteria, and archaea.
Eukaryotes including humans, animals, and plants, have nuclei in their cells, where DNA is mainly stored. Bacteria have no nuclei, and their DNA is free from the cytoplasm. Finally, archaea is a different lifeform again, without nuclei but with eukaryote-like features, such as repetitive sequences and nucleosomes. Archaeal research has become incredibly popular across the globe, due to the uniqueness of the life form.
Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) professor Gao Simin is one of the team members from the Department of Ocean Science and Engineering. They were on the “Experiment 3” scientific research ship of the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is conducting the first mission of the North Indian Ocean in China and Pakistan. Archaea communities were found in the samples for future analysis and research.
“The latest scientific research found that archaea are widely distributed in various environments of the earth, and the ocean is also home to these archaea. Marine archaea are one of the most biologically diverse micro-organisms. The ancient life living in the extreme environment of the Mockland Trench is full of curiosity and expectation,” Gao Simin said.
Located in the northern margin of the Arabian Sea, the Monkland Trench is roughly east-west, with a length of about 700 kilometers and a depth of more than 3,000 meters. There is a tremendous amount of hydrostatic pressure at the base of the trench, and the isolated environment makes it difficult for outside organisms to reach or leave the trench. Every trench is like a dark, self-contained, unique and strange world.
Scientific research has found that the unique cellular structure of archaea gives them the unique ability to survive in extreme environments. For example, thermophilic archaea can survive in terrestrial hot springs and deep-sea hydrothermal fluids over 100 degrees Celsius. Psychrophilic archaea are found in cold environments such as Antarctic glaciers and Tibetan Plateau. In volcanic areas rich in sulfur, acid-resistant archaea have also been found in extremely acidic environments such as springs, sulfur jet holes, and heated coal piles.
Archaea do not only live in extreme environments. Scientists have also found archaea in soil, lakes, rivers and other normal temperature environments. They have even found archaea in the human body. The archaea found in the human body is mainly methanogenic archaea, which can survive under anaerobic and sunlight-free conditions.
Archaea has a small size, generally less than 1 micron. Under the electron microscope, they vary dramatically in shape. However, most archaea cannot be purified and cultured in the laboratory. Their potential metabolic functions can only be analyzed by environmental macro-genomic detection.
Archaea is now considered an essential part of life on Earth and may play a critical role in the carbon and nitrogen cycles.
“Archaea are the third form of life on earth. We are only just starting to understand it. There are still many unsolved mysteries waiting to be explored. It is significant to study archaea,” Gao Simin said. “This is not only because archaea contain unknown biological processes and functions. It is helpful to explore clues to the laws of evolution. It has been discovered that archaea have immeasurable prospects for biotechnology development, areas such as pollution control, clean coal technology, and clean energy production.”
Background information:
SUSTech Department of Ocean Science and Engineering Deputy Director and Chair Professor Zhang Chuanlun created the Key Laboratory of Marine Geosynthesis. It uses “archaea” as one of the key research directions and utilizes the interdisciplinary nature of most SUSTech subjects, integrating the advantages of marine, biological, chemical and biomedical engineering. This would prioritize the creation of four unique analysis rooms.
These four analysis rooms represent the advanced layout of geobiome research and represent the superior advantages and characteristics of SUSTech’s ocean science research.
The plans for the analysis rooms include:
These four research directions exemplify the characteristics of the intersection of multidisciplinary and big-data integration. The research will eventually be quantified into innovative research and social benefits.
