A microbial survey of the International Space Station (ISS)

PeerJ
Jenna M LangJonathan A Eisen

Abstract

Modern advances in sequencing technology have enabled the census of microbial members of many natural ecosystems. Recently, attention is increasingly being paid to the microbial residents of human-made, built ecosystems, both private (homes) and public (subways, office buildings, and hospitals). Here, we report results of the characterization of the microbial ecology of a singular built environment, the International Space Station (ISS). This ISS sampling involved the collection and microbial analysis (via 16S rDNA PCR) of 15 surfaces sampled by swabs onboard the ISS. This sampling was a component of Project MERCCURI (Microbial Ecology Research Combining Citizen and University Researchers on ISS). Learning more about the microbial inhabitants of the "buildings" in which we travel through space will take on increasing importance, as plans for human exploration continue, with the possibility of colonization of other planets and moons. Sterile swabs were used to sample 15 surfaces onboard the ISS. The sites sampled were designed to be analogous to samples collected for (1) the Wildlife of Our Homes project and (2) a study of cell phones and shoes that were concurrently being collected for another component of Project MERCCURI. Seq...Continue Reading

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Citations

Apr 17, 2019·Environmental Microbiology·Emmanuel GonzalezNicholas J B Brereton
Aug 23, 2019·FEMS Microbiology Ecology·Jose V LopezAlexandre S Rosado
Sep 7, 2019·Nature Communications·Maximilian MoraChristine Moissl-Eichinger
Jul 21, 2020·BioMed Research International·Yanwu ChenQiong Xie
Jan 30, 2019·BMC Genomics·Nancy MerinoHaruo Suzuki
Jun 20, 2020·PeerJ·David A CoilJonathan A Eisen
Sep 14, 2018·International Journal of Genomics·Luana de Fátima AlvesMaría-Eugenia Guazzaroni
Jun 13, 2018·Royal Society Open Science·Megan S ThoemmesRobert R Dunn
Aug 2, 2019·The Journal of Hospital Infection·S RawlinsonE Cloutman-Green
May 18, 2021·Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal·N J B BreretonE Gonzalez
May 18, 2021·IScience·Swati BijlaniClay C C Wang

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
PCR
ISS
Phyloseq

Software Mentioned

diversity
FLASH
R
py
Unifrac
fastq
ggplot2
usearch61
METAGENassist
QIIME

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