Microbes from Brine Systems with Fluctuating Salinity Can Thrive under Simulated Martian Chemical Conditions.

The waters that were present on early Mars may have been habitable. Characterising environments analogous to these waters and investigating the viability of their microbes under simulated martian chemical conditions is key to developing hypotheses on this habitability and potential biosignature formation. In this study, we examined the viability of microbes from the Anderton Brine Springs (United Kingdom) under simulated martian chemistries designed to simulate the chemical conditions of water that may have existed during the Hesperian.

How and why plants and human N-glycans are different: Insight from molecular dynamics into the "glycoblocks" architecture of complex carbohydrates.

The N-glycosylation is one of the most abundant and diverse post-translational modifications of proteins, implicated in protein folding and structural stability, and mediating interactions with receptors and with the environment. All N-glycans share a common core from which linear or branched arms stem from, with functionalization specific to different species and to the cells' health and disease state. This diversity generates a rich collection of structures, all diversely able to trigger molecular cascades and to activate pathways, which also include adverse immunogenic responses.