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Characterization of Biofilm Formation, Growth, and Gene Expression on Different Materials and Environmental Conditions in Microgravity (Gene expression of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms)

Metadata Updated: October 23, 2025

Microorganisms' natural ability to live as organized multicellular communities – also known as biofilms – provides them with unique survival advantages. For instance, biofilms are protected against environmental stresses thanks to their extracellular matrix, which could contribute to persistent infections after treatment. Biofilms are also capable of strongly attaching to surfaces, where their metabolism byproducts could lead to surface material degradation. Furthermore, microgravity can alter biofilm behavior in unexpected ways, making the presence of biofilms in space a risk for both astronauts and spaceflight hardware. Despite the efforts to eliminate microorganism contamination from spacecrafts surfaces, it is impossible to prevent human-associated bacteria or fungus from eventually establishing biofilm surface colonization. Nevertheless, by understanding the changes that biofilms undergo in microgravity, it is possible to identify key differences and pathways that could be targeted to significantly reduce biofilm formation. The Space Biofilms project, performed at the International Space Station, contributes to such understanding by characterizing the morphology and gene expression of bacterial and fungal biofilms formed in microgravity with respect to ground controls. Pseudomonas aeruginosa was used as model organism for the bacterial morphology and transcriptomic studies, while Penicillium rubens was used for the fungal morphology study. Bacterial biofilm formation was characterized at one, two, and three days of incubation (37°C) over six different materials: stainless steel 316, passivated stainless steel 316, a lubricant impregnated surface (LIS), catheter grade silicone with and without a linear microtopography, and cellulose membrane.

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 October 23, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 23, 2025
Publisher Open Science Data Repository
Maintainer
Identifier 10.26030/d5dg-7s68
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 c234ccc6-61ef-4c3d-9d16-0882055aaf7c
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://osdr.nasa.gov/bio/repo/data/missions/NG-12
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash eafc8a4624ed436b7e1e1b3b45a992ed1d7428bb5e9020495cb7c5a3f16e54f7
Source Schema Version 1.1

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