Russians Find "New Bacteria" In Lake Vostok

tverbeek writes "Russian scientists believe they have found a new type of bacteria in the sub-glacial Lake Vostok. From the article: 'The samples obtained from the underground lake in May 2012 contained a bacteria which bore no resemblance to existing types, said Sergei Bulat of the genetics laboratory at the Saint Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics. "After putting aside all possible elements of contamination, DNA was found that did not coincide with any of the well-known types in the global database," he said. "We are calling this life form unclassified and unidentified," he added.'"

Comments

"life form unclassified"

[ChrisKnight]

I love living in a world where the regular headlines sound like the start of a decent sci fi adventure.

Now let's just hope this puppy doesn't get out of the lab and become a sci-fi/horror. Two hundred years from now it could be on the History Channel as "Zombie Plagues from the Past".

Re:"life form unclassified"

[Anonymous Coward]

If in two hundred years we still have the history channel then we have need for a zombie plague.

Re:"life form unclassified"

[Samantha Wright]

That's hyperbole, I'm afraid. It's a bacterium, just a very distant cousin. Great for studying evolution, irrelevant to Michael Chrichton. Based on the other bacteria recovered from the borehole sample, its hobbies most likely consist of "feeding on geothermal heat" and "being adapted to an extremely stable, homogeneous environment with no predators or other forms of life," which as a general rule means it's as helpless as the Kakapo.

Re:"life form unclassified"

[Samantha Wright]

Based on circumstantial evidence (another species found nearby), the bacterium is a thermophile that depends on geothermal heat for warmth. Because of the way thermophiles evolve, it is pretty much certain that the proteins in this species are non-functional at colder temperatures; the samples collected were either dead or in a deep state of antifreeze-clogged hibernation.

It's also 700 million years (or more!) behind on immune defences, which means it's vulnerable to everything from the toxins that all plants constantly secret all the time to the macrophages in our blood. The immune game is a Red Queen scenario—either a pathogen is at the forefront of innovation, or it's susceptible to the most basic form of detection.

The only environment this could possibly intrude upon is one comparable to its own—maybe a heat vent in another frozen lake. Even if it wasn't a thermophile, it would be dead meat on the surface because of bacteriophages (viruses). To add insult to injury, as far as we know this bacterium has no competitors and is not part of a community, making it highly unlikely that it has any competition or any defences.

Gene retention is like lactose tolerance—if you don't use it, you'll lose it. For animals, this typically takes a few thousand years. For bacteria it happens much more quickly. They're very simple organisms, and they're very good at adapting, but only if they've had time to adjust to their new setting. In this case, every single one of its (probably several thousand) genes has spent millions of years being fine-tuned for the most boring environment possible. It has absolutely no hope.

Re:"life form unclassified"

[viperidaenz]

other hobbies include: taking over a host organisms brain stem and seeking out anything that moves and doesn't smell dead. Ability to sustain motor control after death of cells.

Re:"life form unclassified"

[rve]

700 million years (or more!)

Uhm, where did you get that figure? 700 million years is two supercontinent cycles ago - Antarctica was slightly north of the equator then. The antarctic ice cap didn't even start to form until the end of the Eocene. According to wikipedia, lake Vostok may have been isolated for the past 15 to 25 million years.

Re:"life form unclassified"

[Samantha Wright]

If you scrutinize the article, Sergei Bulat is quoted as saying the organism has less than 86% "DNA similarity" to other species. Taken at face value, this means that the entire genome of the bacterium is less than 86% similar, which (a) requires isolating it first and months of work, and (b) would not be impressive at all, since Escherichia coli genomes have much higher variety.

He then goes on to say that 90% is the threshold beyond which a species is considered completely unknown. This is an appropriate figure to give when discussing the evolution of one particular gene called the 16S ribosomal RNA, which is very important to cellular function and changes very slowly. It's also a standard test to use in the analysis of bacterial communities, and one of the core tools in metagenomics, because it's very unique to species and hence an excellent fingerprint. If you need citations to back up this claim, I can give you oceans of them. This is my actual day job.

So how divergent is 100 – 86 = 14%? This article references a standard 1% every 50 million years. 14 * 50 = 700 million years. This figure is quite possibly too low in this case, since evolution has a non-linear effect on sequences—eventually mutations flip multiple times, and so large numbers of changes get masked. This rate of change can be sped to 2% every 50 million years if the environment is exceptionally rich and predator-free, like inside certain cells in insects—but that's largely because the host cell is available to a degree to provide nutrients, so proper ribosomal function isn't as important.

This doesn't mean necessarily that this species has been completely isolated the whole time, just that we haven't found any surviving links. If it previously existed in a cave system, for example, that entire community could have been wiped out when Antarctica froze, leaving behind only a stub of organisms that were sheltered by the heat (and food chain) emanating from the thermal vent. Cave ecosystems often contain numerous species that have adapted so tightly to their niche that they are unable to survive outside.

That being said, this expedition has already made crap up for publicity stunts. As this hasn't been published in any journals yet and was instead released to the press first, it's entirely possible that no such species exists. Nevertheless, the claim of 14% divergence will be interpreted by other experts as more than half a billion years.

Re:in soviet russia we bacteria you

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you meant to say, "In Soviet Russia, bacteria finds you!"

Re:uh-oh.

[Wrexs0ul]

It's fine, they're not Norwegian

Life form unclassified? For pete's sake...

[RandomUsername99]

Make sure that nobody on the team that goes down there to further investigate is wearing a red shirt!

Re:SCIENCE!

[Sponge Bath]

It's poetry in motion
She turned her tender eyes to me
As deep as any ocean
As sweet as any harmony

Re:Hope this doesn't go the way of arsenic life

[Samantha Wright]

I don't think it's published yet. TFA mentions "less than" 86% DNA "similarity", which I think was supposed to be 86% 16S RNA homology, in which case, the bacterium has been separated from the nearest known species for at least 700 million years.

Re:this is unimpressive

[Samantha Wright]

I'm not exactly sure if this invalidates your comment, but Uranus is not believed to have a distinct surface underneath its atmosphere. The most popular model suggests that it just gets denser and denser, culminating in a rapidly-spinning mantle-ocean of water, ammonia, and other gasses long before the actual rocky core.

Re:SCIENCE!

[JustOK]

Burma shave.

Re:SCIENCE!

[noh8rz10]

We are calling this life form unclassified and unidentified," he added.'"

shittiest name ever!

Re:uh-oh.

[spazdor]

In other news, Madagascar has shut down all ports.

Re:SCIENCE!

[Roman Coder]

We are calling this life form unclassified and unidentified," he added.'"

shittiest name ever!

Could be worse. Could be 'Odo'.

Re:SCIENCE!

[ColdWetDog]

Just dress it up in Latin -

Inexploratus incognitus

Sounds much more erudite.

Re:uh-oh.

[rve]

More like Nuclear Chemistry if you ask me. Where else is the Chromosomal DNA found?

Thank God I, Mr. Pedantic, got here just in time, to ruin your joke with unsolicited facts: bacteria do not have a cell nucleus.