PROGRESS OF LIPID BIOMARKER RESEARCH IN DEEP-SEA HYDROTHERMAL VENT AREAS

Lipid biomarker bears important information of precursor molecular structure, and is an important media for exploring the biological community in extreme environment, the origin of life and the interaction and co-evolution between life and environment. In this paper, we summarized the recent progresses of lipid biomarkers research for hydrothermal vents, and discussed the application of hydrocarbon, fatty acid and ether biomarkers. The deep-sea hydrothermal vent support a rich and unique life community, and the hydrothermal animals select chemosynthetic microbes as their food. Lipid biomarkers and individual isotopic reflected the presence and activity of thermophilic anaerobic ammonium-oxidizing bacteria and methane-oxidizing archaea. High hydrogen concentrations allow the concurrent growth of methanogens and sulfate-reducing bacteria. Under carbon-limited conditions, lipids of microbe can be very rich in ¹³C(-11.8‰~+3.6‰PDB). Lipid biomarkers has good implication for microbial community characteristics, hydrothermal conditions, methane-metabolized function group and origin and evolution of life, and we proposed that the application range and indicative mechanism of lipid biomarker should be enhanced during the future research.