Department of Biological Sciences, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA.
Biology (Basel). 2013 Mar 28;2(2):629-50. doi: 10.3390/biology2020629.
Lake Vostok is the largest of the nearly 400 subglacial Antarctic lakes and has been continuously buried by glacial ice for 15 million years. Extreme cold, heat (from possible hydrothermal activity), pressure (from the overriding glacier) and dissolved oxygen (delivered by melting meteoric ice), in addition to limited nutrients and complete darkness, combine to produce one of the most extreme environments on Earth. Metagenomic/metatranscriptomic analyses of ice that accreted over a shallow embayment and over the southern main lake basin indicate the presence of thousands of species of organisms (94% Bacteria, 6% Eukarya, and two Archaea). The predominant bacterial sequences were closest to those from species of Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria, while the predominant eukaryotic sequences were most similar to those from species of ascomycetous and basidiomycetous Fungi. Based on the sequence data, the lake appears to contain a mixture of autotrophs and heterotrophs capable of performing nitrogen fixation, nitrogen cycling, carbon fixation and nutrient recycling. Sequences closest to those of psychrophiles and thermophiles indicate a cold lake with possible hydrothermal activity. Sequences most similar to those from marine and aquatic species suggest the presence of marine and freshwater regions.
沃斯托克湖是近 400 个南极地下湖泊中最大的一个，已经被冰川冰连续覆盖了 1500 万年。极寒、高温（可能来自热液活动）、压力（来自覆盖其上的冰川）和溶解氧（由融化的陨石冰提供），加上有限的营养物质和完全的黑暗，共同造就了地球上最极端的环境之一。对在浅湾和南部主湖盆上堆积的冰进行的宏基因组/宏转录组分析表明，存在数千种生物（94%为细菌，6%为真核生物，还有两个古菌）。主要的细菌序列与厚壁菌门、变形菌门和放线菌门的物种最为接近，而主要的真核生物序列与子囊菌门和担子菌门真菌的物种最为相似。根据序列数据，该湖似乎包含了能够进行固氮、氮循环、碳固定和养分循环的自养生物和异养生物的混合物。与嗜冷菌和嗜热菌最接近的序列表明，该湖可能存在低温热液活动。与海洋和水生生物最相似的序列表明存在海洋和淡水区域。
