A team of Indian researchers has discovered that baker’s yeast can survive extreme Martian-like conditions involving high-intensity shock waves and toxic perchlorate salts.
Baker’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) is best known for its essential role in baking, brewing, and biotechnology. Yet this unassuming microorganism may also help scientists understand something far greater: how life might endure in the extreme environments of other worlds.
In a recent study, researchers from the Department of Biochemistry (BC) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), together with colleagues from the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad, discovered that this common yeast can survive conditions similar to those found on Mars.
To test its resilience, the scientists exposed yeast cells to high-intensity shock waves comparable to the forces created by meteorite impacts on the Martian surface, as well as to perchlorate salts—chemicals known to be toxic and abundant in Martian soil.
Using a specialized High-Intensity Shock Tube for Astrochemistry (HISTA) developed in Bhalamurugan Sivaraman’s laboratory at PRL, they generated shock waves reaching speeds of Mach 5.6. The team then treated yeast cells with 100 mM sodium perchlorate, both separately and alongside the shock wave exposure, to evaluate how the organism responded to these combined stresses.
“One of the biggest hurdles was setting up the HISTA tube to expose live yeast cells to shock waves – something that has not been attempted before – and then recovering yeast with minimum contamination for downstream experiments,” explains lead author Riya Dhage, a project assistant in the lab of Purusharth I Rajyaguru, Associate Professor in BC.
A Surprising Survival Mechanism
Remarkably, the yeast cells survived when treated with shock waves and perchlorate, individually and in combination, although the cells’ growth slowed down. The likely key to their resilience lies in their ability to produce ribonucleoprotein (RNP) condensates – tiny, membrane-less structures that help protect and reorganize mRNA when the cells are under stress.
Shock waves triggered the assembly of two types of RNPs called stress granules and P-bodies, while perchlorate exposure led to the generation of P-bodies alone. Yeast mutants that were unable to form these structures were far less likely to survive.
The results show how RNP condensates may act as biomarkers for cellular stress under extraterrestrial conditions.
“What makes this work unique is the integration of shock wave physics and chemical biology with molecular cell biology to probe how life might cope with such Mars-like stressors,” says Dhage.
The findings underscore how baker’s yeast could serve as an excellent model for India’s efforts in astrobiology research. Understanding how such cells reorganize their RNA and proteins under mechanical and chemical stress can provide insights into the survival of lifeforms beyond Earth. Crucially, such insights could also guide the design of stress-resilient extraterrestrial biological systems.
“We were surprised to observe yeast surviving the Mars-like stress conditions that we used in our experiments,” says Rajyaguru, the corresponding author of the study. “We hope that this study will galvanize efforts to have yeast on board in future space explorations.”
Reference: “Ribonucleoprotein (RNP) condensates modulate survival in response to Mars-like stress conditions” by Riya Dhage, Arijit Roy, Bhalamurugan Sivaraman and Purusharth I Rajyaguru, 14 October 2025, PNAS Nexus.
DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf300
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1 Comment
Well, send the yeast up there, then. Let the yeast inhabit Mars, and perhaps one day develop into something more complex, conditions permitting. Just don’t send humans, because the idea that humans can expand beyond Earth and become an “interplanetary species” is simply biologically impossible.