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A microchip technique developed by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory researchers can separate fatty acids by chain length, offering a way to study chemical traces that microorganisms may leave behind. The 2014 demonstration analyzed material from an Earth hydrothermal system; it did not find life beyond Earth.
What the microchip method does
The technique combines nonaqueous capillary electrophoresis with laser-induced fluorescence, abbreviated µNACE-LIF. Researchers label fatty acids with Pacific Blue hydrazine, then use a laser to detect the labeled molecules as the chip separates them by carbon-chain length. The 2014 study reported separations up to C30. The paper in Analytical Methods describes the method.
Fatty acids are hydrophobic, and longer-chain molecules are difficult to analyze in water. Using a nonaqueous solvent addresses that challenge and was intended to extend the range beyond the water-based approaches discussed in the feature. The chip format also points toward a more compact instrument than conventional laboratory setups, though the work described was a research demonstration, not a finished planetary instrument.
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Some microorganisms build cell membranes from fatty acids. Their chain-length patterns can therefore offer clues about which organisms contributed to a sample, including when the organisms are no longer alive. As JPL researcher Peter Willis put it, “different microorganisms have cell membranes with different carbon chain length signatures.”
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The patterns are potential clues, not a universal biological barcode. In the 2014 feature, Willis described algal fatty acids as tending toward C20 and C22, and bacterial fatty acids as typically C16 and C18. Those are reported generalizations, not rules that identify every organism or prove that a sample contains life. A chemical signal needs to be interpreted in context and alongside other evidence.
What the Earth-sample demonstration found
Kevin Hand supplied samples from a mission to the Snake Pit hydrothermal system in the Atlantic, and Morgan Cable analyzed them with the microchip method. The analysis reported C12, C18, C20, and C22 fatty acids. The researchers attributed C12 and C18 to gram-negative bacteria, and C20 and C22 to phototrophic microplankton.
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These findings came from Earth samples. They show how the method could help characterize material associated with microorganisms; they are not evidence that the researchers detected organisms on another world. Nor do the reported assignments establish that those chain lengths can identify microbial groups on their own in every sample.
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Why sample preparation and portability are important
Detecting a promising molecule is only useful if the sample can be prepared reliably and the instrument can operate where the sample is collected. Michael Breadmore, an electroseparation expert at the University of Tasmania, called it “the first method to separate up to C30 fatty acids on a microchip.” He emphasized that “the key to this being useful lies in the simplicity of preparing the sample.”
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That practical challenge matters especially for field science: a compact chip does not eliminate the need to extract and label the target molecules. The feature presented field use and future robotic-lander deployment as goals, not capabilities already demonstrated on a planetary mission.
What the work could mean for ocean worlds
The researchers were motivated in part by possible future investigations of icy ocean worlds such as Europa and Enceladus. If an instrument can be made suitable for a robotic mission, fatty-acid patterns could help characterize samples collected there. But the 2014 study established a method for separating fatty acids and demonstrated it on Earth material; it did not test the method on an extraterrestrial sample or show that life exists on either moon.
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Willis described the broader possibility this way: “So by measuring these molecules in an unknown sample we can gain information about what organisms were present, even if the sample is very old and the organisms are no longer alive.” That is the promise of the approach: a chemical tool for investigating biological history, not a standalone life detector.
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The study behind the technique
The paper, “Microchip nonaqueous capillary electrophoresis of saturated fatty acids using a new fluorescent dye,” was written by M. L. Cable, A. M. Stockton, M. F. Mora, K. P. Hand, and P. A. Willis. It appeared in Analytical Methods in 2014. The Royal Society of Chemistry’s Analytical Methods blog also records the paper title, authors, and publication details.
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