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A new study suggests that no place is immune to the plague of superbugs, not even space. According to the study, samples of bacteria resistant to several antibiotics were discovered at the International Space Station (ISS). And even though the bacteria did not make the astronauts sick, the authors say it's very likely they can.
The authors of the study, published last week in BMC Microbiology, are primarily members of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed by the California Institute of Technology. The laboratory is the main research center for NASA's space and science robotic missions, such as the Mars Curiosity robot, and also manages NASA's Deep Space satellite network.
The new study is in fact 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. And 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 these strains could be dangerous for human health. So they compared the genetics of ISS strains to three strains of E. bugandensis gathered on Earth that made people sick. The ISS strains had much in common with the strains of the Earth, including genes associated with antimicrobial resistance and virulence (the possibility that a microbe infects a person). Based on these genetic similarities, the team estimated that ISS strains were likely to cause illness or be pathogenic in a proportion of 79%.
In view of the results, the authors wrote "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 drastic to infection that can irreparably block our organs – in newborns and the elderly.
These opportunistic infections are already quite serious, but antibiotic resistance makes them more and more difficult to treat. And in the space, where medical resources are limited and where astronauts usually have a weaker immune system, a potential infection could be catastrophic.
Fortunately, the authors claim that there is no evidence that these strains caused any disease on board 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 it's an opportunistic pathogen or not, E. bugandensis cause of the disease and its severity, depends on many factors, including environmental factors, "said Kasthuri Venkateswaran, lead author, researcher in the protection group of biotechnology and planetary protection of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Other in vivo studies are needed to determine the impact that conditions on the ISS, such as microgravity, other factors related to space and spacecraft. , can have on pathogenicity and virulence. "
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