The prestigious international journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (ISSN: 1540-9295), published by the Ecological Society of America publishes in the section Dispatches of last February issue a review (Volcanic caves contain mineral-munching microbes) on the paper recently published in Frontiers in Microbiology by a group of researchers of different countries, among them the members of IRNAS Cesareo Saiz-Jimenez, Valme Jurado Lobo and Ana Z. Miller. The note, authored by Meghan Miner, califies the study as the most extensive of volcanic cave dwelling Actinobacteria to date, and outlines that the researchers have identified several actinobacterial orders novel for science as well as the little overlaping found in the genomes of bacteria between the different sites, which can thus be considered as repositories for novel and rare bacterial species. The ability of these bacteria for survive interacting with minerals with high concentrations of elements considered toxic for cells, as heavy metals, and the neoformation minerals related with the activities of these microorganisms, very similar to some recently indentified in Mars, are two outstanding factors of this research for searching life in other planets. The note can be read here.
The reviewed paper: Riquelme, C., Hathaway, J.J.M., Dapkevicius, M.L.N.E., Miller, A.Z., Kooser, A., Northup, D.E., Jurado, V., Fernandez, O., Saiz-Jimenez, C. and Cheeptham, N. (2015). Actinobacterial Diversity in Volcanic Caves and Associated Geomicrobiological Interactions. Frontiers in Microbiology 6: 1342, can be downloaded here.