XTREMOLIFE Project
Advancing Sampling And Screening Of Extremophile Microorganisms For biodiscovery Of Bioactive Compounds from Volcanic, Desert, and Polar Ecosystems
Thriving in extreme environments, such as high pressure, temperature, or acidity, extremophiles are valuable in the development of biotechnological applications. The EU-funded XTREMOLIFE project aims to study these microorganisms. Working in five regions, the project will use advanced sampling technologies to discover novel microorganisms and their associated metabolites. Sampling will be conducted in Antarctic and volcanic aquatic environments (Abu Dhabi, the Azores, the Canary Islands, and Mexico), assessing extremophilic ecology and conducting bioassays for health applications in volcanic areas. The project will establish a legal framework for sampling, preserving, and exploiting genetic material. It will also lay the groundwork for industrial exploitation.
Objective
XTREMOLIFE will accelerate the bioprospection & biodiscovery of novel extremophile microorganisms. XTREMOLIFE uniqueness is advancing next-generation sampling technologies tailored for extreme conditions: [1] Enhanced Ferrybox for boats (self-operating), [2] novel XTREMOsensor for hand-held use, and [3] automated microscopic imagery identification.
In addition, we explore (a large) biodiversity from 3 extremophilic ecosystems by bioprospecting across 5 regions (Route 1), and 5 untapped culture collections (Route 2). We will join those two routes by identifying promising extremophilic microorganisms, produced metabolites, elucidating their bioactivity and structure, optimizing their cultivation, and guaranteeing a baseline pathway towards full exploitation.
We will focus on microalgae, cyanobacteria, and their associated microbiome, with a particular interest in bacteria and fungi. The culture collections NORCCA (Norway), ACUF (Italy), BEA (Spain), LEGE-CC (Portugal), TII (Abu Dhabi/UAE) will be prospected. In parallel, we will assess the microbiome and plan sampling from 5 locations: [1] Antarctic, [2] Volcanic aquatic environments in Canary Island, [3]Azores, [4]Mexico, and [5] Abu Dhabi: focusing on hypersaline and extremely hot springs.
We will assess the complexity of extremophilic ecology resorting to physical, chemical and biological data gathered. The chemical prospection will cover bioassays in the human, fish and plant health fields. Bioactive compounds will be isolated, and their structure fully characterized.
Together, the consortium will select up to 7 different microbial compounds of interest-producing strains to be cultivated at lab scale, followed by a scale up to TRL 5 (feeding an Exploitation Roadmap). Finally, XTREMOLIFE will cover the legal framework of sampling, preserving and exploiting genetic material. The pathway towards full industrial exploitation (5-10 years after the project) in the various markets of applications will be characterized.
Astrobiology,
