Extremophilic Archaea in Astrobiology

Extremophiles are organisms capable of adapt themselves, survive and thrive in hostile habitats that were previously thought to be adverse for life or lethal. Extreme conditions drive the evolution of their inhabitants, highlighting the role of extremophiles as models for the study of the origin and evolution of life on Earth. Indeed, the investigation of both the microbial communities populating these environments and their biocatalysts, as well as of gene expression control by translational recoding in Archaea provide key insights into the boundaries of life, allowing us to speculate mightily about possible extraterrestrial life form. In this framework, we report here recent advances of our research groups in the astrobiology investigation.