Unravelling the mechanisms of long-term desiccation resistance in microorganisms

Some microorganisms can go into a state of long-term dormancy in desiccated conditions. One mechanism is to form resting states or spores. However, these are highly complex structures formed by a small minority of microorganisms. Of much greater interest is microorganisms that can desiccate in a vegetative state without specialised spore structures. Over the last two years, we have isolated novel strains of non-spore-forming microorganisms that have survived desiccation for over a decade. These organisms potentially offer profoundly interesting insights into the extreme desiccation survival of microorganisms over decade timescales. We might learn about the molecules we could use to preserve other microorganisms over similar time periods and how microorganisms can survive in the dry state in natural (e.g. desert) and artificial (e.g. hospitals) environments over many years. These organisms may contain within them genetic information on how to modify other organisms to survive long-term desiccation. These data have implications for developing commercial methods to preserve microorganisms and other biological materials in medical science, agriculture, and food storage. We want to discover both the physical and biochemical mechanisms that are used by microorganisms to survive long term desiccation. In this proposal, we propose to use neutron scattering (QENS) to understand how water is distributed in one of our extreme desiccation resistant isolates.