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Abstract EANA2024-30


Survival and physiological adaptations of the brine shrimp Artemia salina to simulated Mars environment.

Maria Teresa Muscari Tomajoli (1), Alessandra Rotundi (1,2,3), Gaetana Napolitano (1,2), Paola Di Donato (2,4), Paola Venditti (5), Giovanni Covone (6,7), Vincenzo Della Corte (7), Stefano Fiscale (1,7), Luca Tonietti (1,7), Gianluca Fasciolo (5), Eugenio Geremia (1), Adriana Petito (5), Andreas Lorek (8), Stephen Garland (8), Mickaël Baqué (8)
(1) UNESCO Chair “Environment, Resources and Sustainable Development”, Department of Science and Technology, Parthenope University of Naples, Italy. (2) Department of Science and Technology, Parthenope University of Naples, Italy. (3) INAF-Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Rome, Italy. (4) Institute of Biomolecular Chemistry, CNR-Pozzuoli, Naples, Italy. (5) Department of Biology, Univ. Federico II, Naples, Italy. (6) Department of Physics, Univ. Federico II, Naples, Italy. (7) INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy. (8) Planetary Laboratories Department, Institute of Planetary Research, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Berlin, Germany


Constraining the survivability of different organisms to space-like conditions is of great interest for Astrobiology. In addition to the prokaryotic world, there are also some eukaryotic organisms able to resist at extreme environments, including space. Extreme conditions can lead to alteration in the metabolic pathways of complex biological systems. To identify organisms of interest for future astrobiological studies, it is necessary to investigate their physiological parameters to understand the mechanisms involved in metabolic rearrangement.
The aim of this research is to study the physiological adaptations of the brine shrimp Artemia salina to simulated Mars environment.
The brine shrimp Artemia salina can lower its metabolic rate, resist the space environment, and tolerate prolonged periods of space flight in a cryptobiotic cyst form. This state occurs when the environmental conditions are unfavorable for its development, resulting in a cessation of all metabolic processes. It commonly survives in very high salt concentrations, a crucial property for investigating survivability on Mars or Icy moons.
Artemia cysts have shown the greatest tolerance to negative effects of open space and hatched A. salina can also survive in presence of perchlorates, a toxic chemical found in Martian regolith. This makes them suitable for astrobiological experiments, suggesting the need to investigate their development cycle under Martian conditions. Raman spectroscopy, is used to detect biosignatures in space environments and specifically is interesting for Artemiae, containing carotenoids, i.e. molecules with high relevance as putative Martian biosignatures. A. salina is also a model that can be used for bio-regenerative life support system for space applications, potentially in combination with other species already proven to resist in extreme environments.
In previous studies performed using Artemia cysts and simulating 1h of low Earth pressure, we demonstrated that hatched Artemia nauplii (larval form of Artemiae)  exhibited significant changes in redox homeostasis, without compromising their survivability.
We further investigated their resilience, carrying out experiments simulating 24 hours and 7 days exposure to Mars conditions, at PASLAB of DLR in Berlin. These experiments evaluated the percentage of hatching, the morphology of the naupliar form and the Raman spectra of both cysts and nauplii before and after the simulation in Full Mars (Mars simulated atmosphere with irradiation by Xe-UV lamp) and Dark Mars (Mars simulated atmosphere kept in darkness) conditions.
Preliminary results hilighted that neither hatching nor nauplii morphology was compromised after 24 hours and 7 days of exposure to simulated Martian conditions, both in Full and Dark Mars conditions.
These results suggest that Artemia salina nauplii are highly resilient to the simulated Martian environment, observing a developmental integrity and interesting perspective on Artemia cysts for their biochemical stability.