{"id":312521,"date":"2026-02-27T05:53:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T05:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/312521\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T05:53:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T05:53:11","slug":"exploring-the-habitability-of-the-outer-solar-system-icy-moons-for-the-extremotolerant-yeast-rhodotorula-frigidalcoholis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/312521\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring The Habitability Of The Outer Solar System Icy Moons For The Extremotolerant Yeast Rhodotorula frigidalcoholis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                                    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Exploring-the-Habitability.png\" alt=\"Exploring The Habitability Of The Outer Solar System Icy Moons For The Extremotolerant Yeast Rhodotorula frigidalcoholis\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                                                                                                            We investigated the survival of the yeast Rhodotorula frigidalcoholis and analysed its RNA after exposure to icy moon conditions. Our results show how the yeast can tolerate the extreme conditions and performs metabolic functions under the exposure conditions; for example, by halting the cell cycle in order to repair. Created in BioRender. Zaccaria (2026): <a href=\"https:\/\/BioRender.com\/h5uzc5g\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/BioRender.com\/h5uzc5g<\/a>. \u2014 Environmental Microbiology via PubMed                                                                                                    <\/p>\n<p>Psychrophilic and psychrotolerant microorganisms have the unique ability to grow below 0\u00b0C, which makes them ideal candidates for studying how life could survive on the icy moons of the solar system.<\/p>\n<p>The renewed interest, in view of the JUICE and Europa Clipper missions, to explore these locations has pushed for the identification of organisms which could survive on the icy moons.<\/p>\n<p>In this study we selected the extremophilic yeast Rhodotorula frigidalcoholis given its innate ability to grow between 30\u00b0C and \u221210\u00b0C and to survive a range of extreme conditions including x\u2010ray, UV\u2010C and polychromatic UV radiation, desiccation at different temperatures, and freeze\u2013thaw cycles.<\/p>\n<p>We report the survival of R. frigidalcoholis under conditions analogous to those found on icy moons. Using transcriptomic approaches, we present novel insights into differential gene expression before, during, and after exposure to combined icy moon conditions.<\/p>\n<p>We also identified the rapid activation of genes involved in catalytic activity and DNA repair during exposure. Our results contribute to a better understanding of the survival mechanisms of psychrotolerant microorganisms in extreme environments and can inform future life\u2010detection missions on moons such as Enceladus and Europa, also highlighting the need to consider yeasts in planetary protection efforts.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC12930229\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Exploring the Habitability of the Outer Solar System Icy Moons for the Extremotolerant Yeast Rhodotorula frigidalcoholis<\/a>, Environmental Microbiology via PubMed (open access)<\/p>\n<p>Astrobiology,<\/p>\n<p>                                                                            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/keith_cowing.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager\/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na\u2019Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he\/him) \ud83d\udd96\ud83c\udffb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We investigated the survival of the yeast Rhodotorula frigidalcoholis and analysed its RNA after exposure to icy moon&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[10560,156499,28404,92347,156500,20179,13617,156501,152324,85,46,100308,156502,156503,156504,141,29865],"class_list":{"0":"post-312521","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-enceladus","9":"tag-environmental-microbiology-via-pubmed","10":"tag-europa","11":"tag-europa-clipper","12":"tag-extremophile","13":"tag-habitability","14":"tag-habitable-zone","15":"tag-https-astrobiology-com-2026-02-microbiology","16":"tag-icy-world","17":"tag-il","18":"tag-israel","19":"tag-juice","20":"tag-psychrophilic","21":"tag-psychrotolerant","22":"tag-rhodotorula-frigidalcoholis","23":"tag-science","24":"tag-yeast"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}