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A Molecular Genetic Basis Explaining Altered Bacterial Behavior in Space

Metadata Updated: August 30, 2025

Bacterial behavior has been observed to change during spaceflight. Higher final cell counts, enhanced biofilm formation, increased virulence, and reduced susceptibility to antibiotics have been reported to occur for cells cultured in space . Most of these phenomena are theorized as being an indirect effect of an altered extracellular environment, where the carbon source uptake is inhibited and excreted acidic byproducts buildup around the cell due to the lack of gravity-driven transport forces. However, to date neither spaceflight results, ground-based studies, physical measurement techniques nor computational approaches have provided sufficient evidence needed to confirm this model. Gene expression data from the Antibiotic Effectiveness in Space (AES-1) experiment, however, have now allowed us to look into the biomolecular processes behind these observations and showed a systematic activation of glucose starvation and acid resistance genes. These results corroborate the reduced mass transport model proposed to govern bacterial responses to spaceflight. Furthermore, the gene expression data suggests that metabolism was stimulated in space, which could play a role in causing the observed increase in bacterial cell concentrations in microgravity. Similarly, the decrease in extracellular pH may also be involved with the reported increase in virulence in space.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date August 30, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date August 30, 2025
Publisher Open Science Data Repository
Maintainer
Identifier 10.26030/ne00-p770
Data Last Modified 2025-08-21
Category Biological and Physical Sciences
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id ee7bdd78-42f9-4549-85a3-73acdb91ab3e
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://lsda.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/mission/miss.aspx?mis_index=336
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 4b206f1e1eca79e24ebf52bf382bf9df892f90b92938a7453764d7b0489e02fe
Source Schema Version 1.1

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