The study of life in extreme environments is a critical component of Astrobiology. But many of the so-called "extremophiles" are not readily cultivatable and therefore difficult to study under laboratory conditions. An example of such an extremophile is the snow alga Chlamydomonas cd. nivalis which expresses still unstudied secondary metabolites within its life cycle. In this paper, we present the first time the non-invasive single cell Raman spectroscopy of the life cycle dependent metabolite composition of C. nivalis. These secondary metabolites are likely related to the adaptation of C. nivalis to various stress factors. Normalized carotenoid Raman spectra intensities reveal characteristic ratio differences that allow identification of life cycle stages and putative secondary metabolites.

Date Published: 23 September 2011
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 8152, Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology XIV, 81520F (23 September 2011); doi: 10.1117/12.896481

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8152:
Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology XIV
Richard B. Hoover; Paul C. W. Davies; Gilbert V. Levin; Alexei Yu. Rozanov, Editor(s)