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Effect of microgravity on an animal-bacteria symbiosis

Metadata Updated: October 30, 2025

Spaceflight imposes numerous adaptive challenges for terrestrial life. The reduction in gravity, or microgravity, represents a novel environment that can disrupt homeostasis of many physiological processes. Additionally, it is becoming increasingly clear that an organism's microbiome is critical for host health and examining its resiliency in microgravity represents a new frontier for space biology research. In this study, we examine the impact of microgravity on the interactions between the squid Euprymna scolopes and its beneficial symbiont Vibrio fischeri, which form a highly specific binary mutualism. First, animals inoculated with V. fischeri aboard the space shuttle showed effective colonization of the host light organ, the site of the symbiosis, during spaceflight. Second, RNA-Seq analysis of squid exposed to modeled microgravity conditions exhibited extensive differential gene expression in the presence and absence of the symbiotic partner. Transcriptomic analyses revealed in the absence of the symbiont during modeled microgravity there was an enrichment of genes and pathways associated with the innate immune and oxidative stress response. The results suggest that V. fischeri may help modulate the host stress responses under modeled microgravity. This study provides a window into the adaptive responses that the host animal and its symbiont use during modeled microgravity.

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 30, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 30, 2025
Publisher Open Science Data Repository
Maintainer
Identifier 10.26030/50yb-ga49
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 0e3afbb6-b4af-4ad9-9266-3b83da7c7817
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash ee7e61e57c55c0a4dfd72a5c41eb66677683d766bbd9554580a5fe31c950cba7
Source Schema Version 1.1

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