Study On The Maintenance Of The Plasma Membrane Fluidity In Antarctic Ice Microalga Chlorophyceae L-4 Living In Sea Water And Sea Ice

The South Pole is one of the extreme environments on the earth. Cold is characteristic that distinguishes this area from other areas. Frozen seawater forms a semisolid matrix, permeated by a network of channels and pores, in which the temperature is much lower. It is within this cold labyrinth that the sea-ice microalgae live with the only liquid being pockets of concentrated brines. As is known to all, cold causes many great injuries, even death to cell. Antarctic ice microalga, Chlorophyceae L-4, which can survive in such a low temperature, must have good ability against cold stress, and must form gradually a series of physiological and biochemical mechanism to adapt this extreme environment.Just because of special physiological characteristics, unicellular ice microalgae which are easy to manipulate have been used as fine tested materials to cryobiology and potential source of the new-style active substances. Recently, Antarctic microalgae attract attentions of lots of scientists and become one research focuse. For reasonable exploitation of Antarctic ice microalgae, increase of available microbial resources, discovery of valuable active substances and products, and the further development of fundamental researches, initial study on the low-temperature adaptability of the plasma membrane in the new material,antarctic ice microalga Chlorophyceae L-4, is carried out.(1)The results showed that the plasmalemma of Chlorophyceae L-4 could maintain the stability at the freezing condition of -6℃. Consequently, it will maintain the proper function of plasma lemma and stability of intracellular environment. By using the X-ray microanalysis method, the contents and functions of inorganic ions correlated with plasmalemma states under different temperatures in...