by Rob Edwards
What's the lowest temperature at which microbes can grow? Clearly it is below 0°C and above −273°C, so we have a range. See a review on the topic.
Likewise, what's the hottest temperature for growth?
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by Elio — To a thermophilic Southern Californian with an anthropocentric bent like myself (I live in San Diego), life in the cold seems both implausible and disagreeable. I jest. I am aware that fish, insects, plants, and above all microbes can thrive in extremely cold climates and make use of a variety of strategies to overcome the harsh conditions.
by Daniel P. Haeusser — Over the last ten-plus years of this blog's existence, one cluster of branches on the bacterial phylogenetic tree in particular has presented us with fascinating mysteries regarding basic, and seemingly unique, cellular biology. Many aspects of the species on these branches remain enigmatic, but what details researchers have been able to coax from them...
by S. Marvin Friedman — How can thermophilic bacteria not only survive, but actually proliferate, at elevated temperatures that would be lethal to all other forms of life? After extensive research during the past five decades, this question has been answered in a general way, but the molecular basis for this unusual capability has not been…
by Merry Youle — There is something both endearing and enduring about E. coli. Just when you think that all kinds of other fascinating bugs are about to give it a shove into history, news emerges of its renewed importance. This time, it's biofuels...
by Elio — Now that news of the arsenic-eating bacteria has saturated cyberspace, the airwaves, and even old-fashioned newsprint, we step back to raise a larger question: Why have so few elements from the periodic table made it into living things? You seldom hear about anything past the first few rows in the table.
As far as I know (and I suspect you know know this too), the highest growth temperature recorded to date is 121 degrees C for Strain 121 — but it has a ridiculously slow growth speed of about one day's doubling time. Personally, I wouldn't be at all surprised if some life form could handle almost any temperature so long as there was enough pressure to maintain liquid water.
I'd agree with Christopher.
And for always giving me a moment to reflect on our lil bugs...i have tagged this blog on mine for an award.
I'll add my vote to Christopher's; as long as you've got liquid water, at either end of the spectrum, something should be able to eke out a living. Is there some physical limit to how low you can get the freezing temperature of water by adding solutes?
There was a recent PNAS paper describing a method for growing Methanopyrus kandleri at 122° under pressure, so strain 121 has been beaten, but not by much...
Mike,
Many thanks for pointing out the current Olympic champ. The article is at
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=18664583
The race is surely on.
Elio
In terms of the lower temperature limits, the eutectic point of water is ‑40C. Several recent studies have looked at metabolics and gene expression as low as ‑15C. There are groups experimenting with bacteria in vitrious ice (ice as a glass) down to ‑187C. In terms of growth rates, we see aerobic heterotrophs doubling every few days in rich media down to ‑6C and every couple weeks in mineral media with a single C‑source.