High pressures depress the onset of intracellular vitrification.

ABSTRACT: The low temperature limit for life remains elusive and poorly understood. This ignorance is further compounded when applied to life in multi-extreme environments where low temperatures combine with factors such as high salt concentrations, or high environmental pressures. It has been proposed that the onset of intracellular vitrification enforces a biophysical low temperature limit for unicellular life at ~ -23 °C. However, it has not been demonstrated how high-pressures affect intracellular vitrification, which is vital for understanding the habitability of low temperature, subsurface environments, both on Earth and on other planetary bodies. Here, we used high-pressure differential scanning calorimetry to measure the intracellular vitrification of Bacillus subtilis across pressures rangi

SUBMITTER: Gault S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12714261 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature