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Microbiomes of China’s Space Station During Assembly, Integration, and Test Operations

  • Environmental Microbiology
  • Published:
Microbial Ecology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Sufficient evidence indicates that orbiting space stations contain diverse microbial populations, which may threaten astronaut health and equipment reliability. Understanding the composition of microbial communities in space stations will facilitate further development of targeted biological safety prevention and maintenance practices. Therefore, this study systematically investigated the microbial community of China’s Space Station (CSS). Air and surface samples from 46 sites on the CSS and Assembly Integration and Test (AIT) center were collected, from which 40 bacteria strains were isolated and identified. Most isolates were cold- and desiccation-resistant and adapted to oligotrophic conditions. Bacillus was the dominant bacterial genus detected by both cultivation-based and Illumina MiSeq amplicon sequencing methods. Microbial contamination on the CSS was correlated with encapsulation staff activities. Analysis by spread plate and qPCR revealed that the CSS surface contained 2.24 × 103–5.47 × 103 CFU/100 cm2 culturable bacteria and 9.32 × 105–5.64 × 106 16S rRNA gene copies/100cm2; BacLight™ analysis revealed that the viable/total bacterial cell ratio was 1.98–13.28%. This is the first study to provide important systematic insights into the microbiome of the CSS during assembly that describes the pre-launch microbial diversity of the space station. Our findings revealed the following. (1) Bacillus strains and staff activities should be considered major concerns for future biological safety. (2) Autotrophic and multi-resistant microbial communities were widespread in the AIT environment. Although harsh cleaning methods reduced the number of microorganisms, stress-resistant strains were not completely removed. (3) Sampling, storage and analytical methods for the space station were thoroughly optimized, and are expected to be applicable to low-biomass environments in general. Microbiology-related future works will follow up to comprehensively understand the changing characteristics of microbial communities in CSS.

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Abbreviations

BacLight™ :

LIVE/DEAD® Bacterial Viability Kit

PMA-qPCR:

Propidium monoazide quantitative PCR

OTU:

Operational taxonomic unit

ISS:

International Space Station

AIT:

Assembly, Integration, and Test

PBS:

Phosphate-buffered saline

PCA:

Principal component analysis

NA:

Nutrient agar medium

SDA:

Sabouraud’s agar medium

LB:

Luria-Bertani medium

PCA Medium/ Plate:

Plate count agar medium

B-P:

Baird-Parker plates medium

PDA:

Potato Dextrose agar

HFM:

Hutchinson fluid medium

CCR:

Cellulose Cong red medium

TSA:

Trypticase soy agar medium

R2A:

Reasoner’s 2A agar medium

AAM:

Autotrophic all-rounder liquid medium

N2fix:

Hino and Wilson N2-free liquid medium modified

AHM:

Homoacetogen liquid medium

ASR:

Autotrophic sulfate reducer medium

Rv:

The ratio of viable/total bacteria

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Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to the China Aeronautics and Space Administration for the logistic support and overall management of samplings. This work was financed by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No.31600404).

Availability of Data and Materials

Sequencing reads were deposited as entire raw data in the National Center for Biotechnology Information Sequence Read Archive (NCBI SRA; accession number SRP105019).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Science, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Ying Zhang, Cong-xin Xin, Xiao-qiong Li & Yu-lin Deng

  2. Institute of Manned Space System Engineering, China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing, 100094, China

    Lan-tao Zhang & Xiang Wang

  3. Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering, Beijing, 100094, China

    Zhi-dong Li

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  1. Ying Zhang
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Zhang, Y., Zhang, Lt., Li, Zd. et al. Microbiomes of China’s Space Station During Assembly, Integration, and Test Operations. Microb Ecol 78, 631–650 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-019-01344-4

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