Recently there was a discovery of remote mountain caves wher

Recently, there was a discovery of remote mountain caves where high acid leaching from the surroundings has occurred creating highly acidic aquatic pools deep inside the caves. A bacteria group has been found living in this high acid environment, but when the bacteria were taken out of this enviornment and put into a general nutrient broth, the organisms died. Additionally, when organisms living at a neutral pH were placed into some of this high acid liquid, they died. Account for the inability of organisms to grow outside their pH rnages. Why for instants are these cave acidophiles able to survive at a low pHs when neutrophiles can\'t?

Solution

Answer) This ability of surviving into a restricted PH conditions shows the adaptive values of these organisms. when an organism can survive in each harsh condition but die in normal conditions, then it shows that it has undergone molecular adaptation to harsh conditions and vice-versa.

Acidophilic are the organisms which are adapted to high acidic conditions (very low PH). neutrophilic are the organisms which are adapted to neutral PH condition (PH near 7).

in this case, an acidophilic bacterium well survives in acidic conditions. this means that that its cytoplasm and the cytoplasmic proteins are all well adapted to normal functions at acidic PH. it can be deciphered that these proteins might have high concentration of acidic amino acid residues which provides a stable folding and confirmation to the proteins under acidic cytoplasm. while, neutrophilic bacteria have their proteins adapted to neutral PH conditions and placing them in acidic PH condition will denature its cytoplasmic proteins and inhibit essential functions which will end up in death of these bacteria in low PH.