Bacteria in the clean rooms of the spaceships can become dormant and escape death

This sneaky spatial bacteria can play death to survive

By Stephanie Pappas Published by Clara Moskowitz

A bacterial species found in the clean rooms of spacecraft can survive intensive antimicrobial cleaning in the clean rooms of the spaceships by making sleeping in sleep. This is important because other survivors of the white room were known to live by disinfection by forming spores, which are thick wall structures which protect bacteria from high temperatures or toxins such as ethanol. Actinobacterium Tersicoccus phenicis Impossible to train these spores, but a new study published in the journal Microbiology spectrum shows that he can enter into a state similar to hibernation. In this state, it has no growth and almost no metabolism, but has the capacity to “wake up” when the conditions improve.

“In the cleanest places we build – space -spaces, pharmaceutical plants, food installations – some microbes are not dead: they are dormant,” explains Alberto G. Féen, astrobiologist at Cornell University which was not involved in research.

In this sleeping state, T. Phoenix cannot be detected by the usual method of swab surfaces and to check which bacteria are developing in crop from swabs. This means that it could theoretically sneak aboard the spacecraft which is supposed to be free from earth contaminants. If such a bug went to another planet, he could wake up on arrival and potentially disturb the existing extraterrestrial life. “This is a huge problem of planetary protection,” explains Madhan Tirumalai, biologist and biochemist at the University of Houston and the main author of the new study.

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T. Phoenix Was discovered for the first time in a white room in Kennedy Space Center in NASA in Florida, where the Mars Phoenix was in preparation for the launch. Two years later, he appeared in a white room of the European space agency in South America. In 2013, scientists discovered that this mystery survivor was not only a new species but a new kind of bacteria.

This species is part of a larger group of bacteria, known as Actinomycetota or Actinobacteria, which are able to become dormant when the conditions are not conducive to growth. (A famous member of this group is Mycobacterium tuberculosisThe bacteria that causes tuberculosis, which can become dormant and persist in the lungs during a lifetime.) T. Phoenix was capable of dormancy, Tirumalai and his colleagues deprived nutrient cells and extracted all the water (a process called desiccation). The cells have ceased to grow and the number of viable cells dropped in a few days.

To show that these non -viable cells were dormant, and not dead, the researchers added a protein called factor favoring resuscitation (RPF), which is known to “wake up” other species of dormant actinobacteria. The RPF has relaunched the cells, “proving that they were alive but silent,” said Tirumalai.

It is a concern for human trips in a place like Mars, which could offer a new environment rich in nutrients to hibernation microbes. Astronauts who try to survive on the red planet should cultivate food, and the sugars and nutrients involved could revive bacteria, explains the co-author of the study William Widger, biologist of the University of Houston. “It would be in the safe neighborhoods of the astronauts environment, probably where you would not want them.”

The microbe could probably not survive the Martian surface, however, says Féen. “The high UV flow, extreme cold and desiccation, low atmospheric pressure and cosmic radiation on Mars are extremely hostile – even for spore forms. Unprotected unprotected cells would almost certainly not support long surfaces on Mars – miniatures or less. ”

This makes the contamination of a robotic mission an improbable concern, says Féen, although the human missions to the planet contaminate it almost certainly. The document highlights the need for better detection and targeting of unused bacteria in the white chambers, he says.

It is not yet clear how to effectively clean dormant microbes. Tirumalai and his colleagues now seek to test other survivors of the white room for their dormancy potential, which would argue for the overthrow of current cleaning procedures.

“If we can show that a large number of these organizations that have been isolated from clean rooms can go into dormancy,” says Tirumalai, “Bingo – we have a much larger story.”

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