Closed-loop in situ isolation of deep-sea extremophiles through sensor-driven microenvironment preservation
Deep sea microorganisms remain largely inaccessible because existing sampling and cultivation methods fail to preserve native high-pressure microenvironments from seafloor to laboratory. Here we show a closed-loop cyber physical platform that maintains in situ deep-sea conditions through real-time sensing, digital twin control and robotic high-pressure manipulation to enable targeted isolation of extremophiles. The system integrates intelligent site selection, active pressure retention and multimodal vision–tactile feedback to automate colony recognition with 94.6% accuracy and perform compliant streaking and picking, enabling the recovery of deep-sea-adapted strains from cold seep environments. These results establish a sensor-driven framework for standardized exploration of the deep biosphere and provide a generalizable approach for isolating microorganisms from environments inaccessible to conventional methods. A closed-loop cyber physical platform that preserves native deep-sea microenvironments enables fully automated in situ cultivation and isolation of extremophiles through sensor-driven sampling, pressure retentive handling and robotic high-pressure manipulation.
Authors
- Dapeng Zou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9125-9522)
- Nishi Yu
- Chunlei Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2343-7980)
- Canrong Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4585-2683)
- Zhengguang Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8766-929X)
- Bingxu Hu
- Minghui Shi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9676-6972)
- Liangyun Qin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0588-5015)
- Xuanyu Tao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8578-9519)
- Guang Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3406-964X)
- Jianzhen Liang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0804-9151)
- Jing‐Chun Feng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6819-8645)
- Kelei Zhu
- Si Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0608-0991)
- Nan Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7616-4832)
- Zhen Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3885-2463)
- Cun Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9076-4802)
- Yajing Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8211-3137)
- Zhifeng Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-7769-4505)
- Xin Lin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9201-831X)
- Qixuan Wu
- Renzeng Shi
- Rui Lu
- Yihan Shao
- Chaoqi Li
- Weiyu Yuan
- Mengzhuo Zhu
- Xi Yang
- Junrong Zhai
- Mingxin Wu
- Li Tang
- Weicong Liang
- Qian Zhang
- Jingnan Tian
- Xiaokang Wang
- Zhifeng Yang
- Wentao Wang
- Yi Wang
- Yuhang Zhang
- Hongyi Liu
- Jinhua Li
- Junjie Chen
- Yue Zhu
Institutions
- Guangdong University of Technology (CN)
- Harbin Engineering University (CN)
- Northwestern Polytechnical University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HK)
- University of Manchester (GB)
- Guangdong Polytechnic of Science and Technology (CN)
- Institute of Oceanology (CN)
- South China Sea Institute Of Oceanology (CN)
- Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) (CN)
- Institute of Geology and Geophysics (CN)
- Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion (CN)
- Guangdong Ocean University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Sensors
- Published
- 2026-09-09
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s44460-026-00128-x
- Primary Topic
- Micro and Nano Robotics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00