Tracing primordial metabolism reflected by microorganisms under hydrothermal conditions (P13+)

• Subject Area: Biological and Biomimetic Chemistry
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 364653263

The main goal of this project is to provide experimental constraints of hydrothermal conditions on the functioning and evolution of ancestral metabolism. We will simulate early earth hydrothermal conditions including the presence of volcanic gases to identify ancestral fingerprints in the transcripts, metabolites and carbon pathways of the extant deeply branching model organisms, Methanopyrus kandleri and Thermovibrio ammonificans. The study will also include microbiota collected from two serpentinization sites. The results will have meaning for the CRC by constraining the controlling parameters of hydrothermal conditions for the origin and evolution of life.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios
• Subproject of: TRR 235: Emergence of Life: exploring mechanisms with cross-disciplinary experiments
• Applicant Institution: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Wolfgang Eisenreich; Professor William Orsi, Ph.D.