In Situ Field Sequencing and Life Detection in Remote (79°26'N) Canadian High Arctic Permafrost Ice Wedge Microbial Communities.

ABSTRACT: Significant progress is being made in the development of the next generation of low cost life detection instrumentation with much smaller size, mass and energy requirements. Here, we describe in situ life detection and sequencing in the field in soils over laying ice wedges in polygonal permafrost terrain on Axel Heiberg Island, located in the Canadian high Arctic (79°26'N), an analog to the polygonal permafrost terrain observed on Mars. The life detection methods used here include (1) the cryo-iPlate for culturing microorganisms using diffusion of in situ nutrients into semi-solid media (2) a Microbial Activity Microassay (MAM) plate (BIOLOG Ecoplate) for detecting viable extant microorganisms through a colourimetric assay, and (3) the Oxford Nanopore MinION for nucleic acid detect

SUBMITTER: Goordial J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5742409 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature