ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2007
Ancient bacteria show evidence of DNA repair.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 84 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
84 citing papers in PubMed.
- Fluorescent probes as markers of cell envelope structure and function in halophilic archaea.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Relative contributions of vegetation and soil properties to microbial community structure and function in alpine and subalpine meadows of the southeastern Tibetan Plateau.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Exploring Life Detection on Mars: Understanding Challenges in DNA Amplification in Martian Regolith Analogue After Fe Ion Irradiation.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Review
- Comparative analysis of prokaryotic microbiomes in high-altitude active layer soils: insights from Ladakh and global analogues using In-Silico approaches.Brazilian journal of microbiology : [publication of the Brazilian Society for Microbiology] · 2024Article
- Taxonomic diversity and environmental tolerance of cultivable extremophilic bacteria from a high-altitude meltwater pond on Ojos del Salado (Chile).Biologia futura · 2024Article
- Maximizing efficiency in sedimentary ancient DNA analysis: a novel extract pooling approach.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- ZnO nanoparticles encapsulated cellulose-lignin film for antibacterial and biodegradable food packaging.iScience · 2024Article
- Survival and rapid resuscitation permit limited productivity in desert microbial communities.Nature communications · 2024Article
- A 2000-Year-OldMicroorganisms · 2024Article
- Earth to Mars: A Protocol for Characterizing Permafrost in the Context of Climate Change as an Analog for Extraplanetary Exploration.Astrobiology · 2023Article
- Active and dormant microorganisms on glacier surfaces.Geobiology · 2023Article
- Article
- Soil nutrients, enzyme activities, and bacterial communities in varied plant communities in karst rocky desertification regions in Wushan County, Southwest China.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Summer thaw duration is a strong predictor of the soil microbiome and its response to permafrost thaw in arctic tundra.Environmental microbiology · 2022Article
- Article
- A Critical Assessment of the Congruency between Environmental DNA and Palaeoecology for the Biodiversity Monitoring and Palaeoenvironmental Reconstruction.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Review
- Shifts in Bacterial Community Composition and Functional Traits at Different Time Periods Post-deglaciation of Gangotri Glacier, Himalaya.Current microbiology · 2022Article
- Bacterial age distribution in soil - Generational gaps in adjacent hot and cold spots.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Article
24 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Recent claims of cultivable ancient bacteria within sealed environments highlight our limited understanding of the mechanisms behind long-term cell survival. It remains unclear how dormancy, a favored explanation for extended cellular persistence, can cope with spontaneous genomic decay over geological timescales. There has been no direct evidence in ancient microbes for the most likely mechanism, active DNA repair, or for the metabolic activity necessary to sustain it. In this paper, we couple PCR and enzymatic treatment of DNA with direct respiration measurements to investigate long-term survival of bacteria sealed in frozen conditions for up to one million years. Our results show evidence of bacterial survival in samples up to half a million years in age, making this the oldest independently authenticated DNA to date obtained from viable cells. Additionally, we find strong evidence that this long-term survival is closely tied to cellular metabolic activity and DNA repair that over time proves to be superior to dormancy as a mechanism in sustaining bacteria viability.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.