Exploring Microbes at Wind Cave as an Analog for Exobiological Environments off Earth

Subterranean environments on Earth serve as an analog for the study of microbes on other planets. This has become an active area of research with the discovery of exoplanets. To learn about the microbial species living in Wind Cave, we are comparing methods to sample environmental DNA because most microbes cannot be cultivated using standard laboratory methods. We are then probing the environmental DNA with broad primers that are designed to amplify most life and narrower primers such as those specific to the domain Archaea. Of the methods compared, the Qiagen DNeasy Powerbiofilm kit produced the purest template as measured by its ability to be PCR amplified. The next steps are to optimize the DNA testing reactions to limit mispriming. In the future, these methods will be used to determine the identity, quantity, and spatial distribution of microbes in Wind Cave