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No place is immune to the plague of superbugs , according to a new study, not even space. . According to the study, samples of bacteria resistant to several antibiotics were discovered at the International Space Station (ISS). And although the bacteria did not make the astronauts sick, the authors say that it is very likely that they can.
The authors of the study, published last week in BMC Microbiology, are primarily members of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed. by the California Institute of Technology. The lab is NASA's main research center for space and science missions, such as the Mars Curiosity robot, and also manages NASA's Deep Space satellite network.
This new study is an update of the current work of researchers. In January, the same team published a research on the bacterial genetics of samples taken from ISS surfaces in 2015. In these samples, they discovered more than 100 known bacterial genes to help make the bacteria resistant to antibiotics. Strains belonging to a particular species of bacteria, Enterobacter bugandensis were resistant to the nine antibiotics tested against them.
In this latest study, they hoped to understand how dangerous these strains could be. Human health. So they compared the genetics of ISS strains to three strains of E. bugandensis were collected on Earth to make them sick. The ISS strains had much in common with the strains of the Earth, including genes badociated with antimicrobial resistance and virulence (the possibility that a microbe infects a person). Based on these genetic similarities, the team estimated that strains of ISS probably had a 79% chance of causing disease or being pathogenic.
In view of the results, the authors wrote that "these species pose significant health problems for future missions".
Enterobacter bacteria live almost everywhere, including our guts. As a rule, they do not cause illness. But in people whose immune systems are weakened, such as inpatients, they can become the source of life-threatening serious infections. And the newly discovered E. bugandensis is known to cause sepsis – an immune response too radical to an infection that can lead to death of our organs – in newborns and the elderly.
These opportunistic infections are already quite serious, but resistance to antibiotics makes them more and more difficult to treat. And in space, where medical resources are limited and the immune system of astronauts is generally weakened, a possible infection could be catastrophic.
Fortunately, the authors say that there is no evidence that these strains caused any disease onboard the ISS. And there is still a lot of work to be done to determine the extent to which these insects pose a problem, and to determine whether the conditions of space travel encourage their growth or make them more dangerous. One scientist, for example, hypothesized that microgravity might actually cause bacteria to evolve more quickly than on Earth, or mitigate the effects of antibiotics on germs. Future research should include experiments conducted directly in space.
"Whether or not an opportunistic pathogen such as E. bugandensis is responsible for diseases and its severity, it depends on many factors, including environmental, "said lead author Kasthuri Venkateswaran, a researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Biotech and Global Protection Group, in a statement." Other in vivo studies are needed to to determine the impact that conditions on ISS, such as microgravity, other space and space-related factors, may have on pathogenicity and virulence. "
[BMC Microbiology]
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