期刊
PEERJ
卷 5, 期 -, 页码 -出版社
PEERJ INC
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.4029
关键词
16S; Microbial ecology; Microbiology of the built environment; Microbiome; International space station
资金
- Space Florida ISS Research Competition
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as part of the Microbiology of the Built Environment program
Background. 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. Results. 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 MERCCURL Sequencing of the 16S rDNA genes amplified from DNA extracted from each swab was used to produce a census of the microbes present on each surface sampled. We compared the microbes found on the ISS swabs to those from both homes on Earth and data from the Human Microbiome Project. Conclusions. While significantly different from homes on Earth and the Human Microbiome Project samples analyzed here, the microbial community composition on the ISS was more similar to home surfaces than to the human microbiome samples. The ISS surfaces are species-rich with 1,036-4,294 operational taxonomic units (OTUs per sample). There was although this may be a no discernible biogeography of microbes on the 15 ISS surfaces, reflection of the small sample size we were able to obtain.
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