| Autor: |
Ni Z; University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA., Arevalo R Jr; University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA., Bardyn A; University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA., Willhite L; University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA., Ray S; University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA., Southard A; CRESST II, College Park, Maryland, USA., Danell R; Danell Consulting, Winterville, North Carolina, USA., Graham J; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA., Li X; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA., Chou L; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA.; Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA., Briois C; Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace, Orléans, France., Thirkell L; Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace, Orléans, France., Makarov A; Thermo Fisher Scientific, Bremen, Germany., Brinckerhoff W; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA., Eigenbrode J; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA., Junge K; University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA., Nunn BL; University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA. |
| Abstrakt: |
Studies of psychrophilic life on Earth provide chemical clues as to how extraterrestrial life could maintain viability in cryogenic environments. If living systems in ocean worlds ( e.g., Enceladus) share a similar set of 3-mer and 4-mer peptides to the psychrophile Colwellia psychrerythraea on Earth, spaceflight technologies and analytical methods need to be developed to detect and sequence these putative biosignatures. We demonstrate that laser desorption mass spectrometry, as implemented by the CORALS spaceflight prototype instrument, enables the detection of protonated peptides, their dimers, and metal adducts. The addition of silicon nanoparticles promotes the ionization efficiency, improves mass resolving power and mass accuracies via reduction of metastable decay, and facilitates peptide de novo sequencing. The CORALS instrument, which integrates a pulsed UV laser source and an Orbitrap™ mass analyzer capable of ultrahigh mass resolving powers and mass accuracies, represents an emerging technology for planetary exploration and a pathfinder for advanced technique development for astrobiological objectives. Teaser: Current spaceflight prototype instrument proposed to visit ocean worlds can detect and sequence peptides that are found enriched in at least one strain of microbe surviving in subzero icy brines via silicon nanoparticle-assisted laser desorption analysis. |
