A microbial survey of the International Space Station (ISS)

Lang, Jenna M.; Coil, David A.; Neches, Russell Y.; Brown, Wendy E.; Cavalier, Darlene; Severance, Mark; Hampton-Marcell, Jarrad T.; Gilbert, Jack A.; Eisen, Jonathan A.

doi:10.7717/peerj.4029

Title: A microbial survey of the International Space Station (ISS)

Journal Article · Tue Dec 05 00:00:00 EST 2017 · PeerJ

DOI:https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4029· OSTI ID:1629391

Lang, Jenna M. ^[1]; Coil, David A. ^[1]; Neches, Russell Y. ^[1]; Brown, Wendy E. ^[2]; Cavalier, Darlene ^[3]; Severance, Mark ^[4]; Hampton-Marcell, Jarrad T. ^[5]; Gilbert, Jack A. ^[6]; Eisen, Jonathan A. ^[7]

Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States). Genome Center
Science Cheerleader (United States); Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States). Biomedical Engineering
Science Cheerleader (United States); Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States). The Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes; Scistarter.org (United States)
Science Cheerleader (United States); Scistarter.org (United States)
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Biosciences Division; Univ. of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States). Dept. of Biological Sciences
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Inst. for Genomics and Systems Biology
Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States). Genome Center; Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States). Evolution and Ecology; Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States). Medical Microbiology and Immunology

Background: Modern advances in sequencing technology have enabled the census of microbial members of many natural ecosystems. Recently, attention is increasingly being paid to the microbial residents of human-made, built ecosystems, both private (homes) and public (subways, office buildings, and hospitals). Here, we report results of the characterization of the microbial ecology of a singular built environment, the International Space Station (ISS). This ISS sampling involved the collection and microbial analysis (via 16S rDNA PCR) of 15 surfaces sampled by swabs onboard the ISS. This sampling was a component of Project MERCCURI (Microbial Ecology Research Combining Citizen and University Researchers on ISS). Learning more about the microbial inhabitants of the “buildings” in which we travel through space will take on increasing importance, as plans for human exploration continue, with the possibility of colonization of other planets and moons. Results: Sterile swabs were used to sample 15 surfaces onboard the ISS. The sites sampled were designed to be analogous to samples collected for (1) the Wildlife of Our Homes project and (2) a study of cell phones and shoes that were concurrently being collected for another component of Project MERCCURI. Sequencing of the 16S rDNA genes amplified from DNA extracted from each swab was used to produce a census of the microbes present on each surface sampled. We compared the microbes found on the ISS swabs to those from both homes on Earth and data from the Human Microbiome Project. Conclusions: While significantly different from homes on Earth and the Human Microbiome Project samples analyzed here, the microbial community composition on the ISS was more similar to home surfaces than to the human microbiome samples. The ISS surfaces are species-rich with 1,036–4,294 operational taxonomic units (OTUs per sample). There was no discernible biogeography of microbes on the 15 ISS surfaces, although this may be a reflection of the small sample size we were able to obtain.

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Research Organization:: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Biological Systems Science Division

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-06CH11357

OSTI ID:: 1629391

Journal Information:: PeerJ, Vol. 5; ISSN 2167-8359

Publisher:: PeerJ Inc.Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
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