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Found on Mars: Bacterial Fatty Acids?

Tuesday, April 17, 2018 6:25

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All articles by Wretch Fossil are here: http://www.wretch.cc/blog/lin440315&category_id=0

Last updated on Jan. 29, 2018

Image credit and source: courses.washington.edu/conj/membrane/fattyacid.png
Fatty Acids can be a sign of past life on Mars (note 1). Ooids have bacterial fatty acids (notes 2, 3), which may have been detected by Mars rover Curiosity (notes 4, 5, 6). Mars rover Curiosity has used its SAM instrument 9 times to analyze the chemical compositions of the sand grains from Gobabeb and Ogunquit Beach in Bagnold dune field in Gale Crater, Mars.

Note 1: “In contrast, fatty acids produced without biology do not use enzymes to regulate their carbon chain length. As a result, abiotic fatty acids tend to be fairly short and do not show a preference for even over odd chain lengths.” (Quoted from paragraph 10 in https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2017/12/29/nasas-search-for-transfats-and-other-fatty-acids-on-mars/#35de2b29c5f2)

Note 2: “Cyanobacteria changed from Xenococcaceae in the surf zone to Pseudanabaenaceae offshore.Bacterial fatty acids, bacteriohopanepolyols and glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetratethers were abundant, while algal sterols and polyunsaturated fatty acids were much higher offshore. The distributions of lipids bound within the inner cortex, released by acid dissolution were very similar along this transect, but exhibited markedly different composition to surface lipids….” Quoted from paragraph 4 in https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/abscicon2015/pdf/7317.pdf
Note 3: “The FAs (fatty acids in ooids) comprised a complex mixture of C₁₂–C₁₈normal and branched short-chain compounds with the predominant straight-chain components attributable to bacteria and/or cyanobacteria.” (Quoted from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gbi.12047/abstract )

Note 4: “More intriguing still are a handful of longer chain, heavier organic molecules, detected thanks to the ambient bath of leaked solvent. They have defied identification, but may resemble remnants of fatty acids. Life tends to churn out fats in even numbers, with chains 12, 14, 16, and 18 carbons long; finding hints of such a pattern is the biosignature that Mahaffy dreams of discovering.” Quoted from the last sixth paragraph in http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/mars-rover-steps-hunt-molecular-signs-life

Note 5: “For its part, NASA’s Curiosity rover SAM instrument is capable of analyzing atmospheric and solid samples for organic molecules. If they’re present, Williams says that by using mass spectrometry (the ability to break apart molecules based on their mass), the TMAH (tetramethylammonium hydroxide) wet chemistry experiment on the SAM instrument will be able to detect organic compounds that are normally not detectable. The TMAH experiment will be able to extract, detect and analyze fatty acids from by liberating fatty acids from cellular membranes.”

Note 6: Mars Rover Curiosity successfully performed its first-time wet chemistry experiment around Dec. 20, 2017: http://wretchfossil.blogspot.tw/2018/01/mars-rover-found-organic-molecules.html?q=wet+chemistry

Wretch Fossil’s website:http://wretchfossil.blogspot.com/

Source: http://wretchfossil.blogspot.com/2018/01/martian-bacterial-fatty-acid-may-have.html

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