New research appears to signal a reframing (or the need for one) in relation to how biofilms are viewed in space biology, and the previously overlooked role they might play in ensuring the health of space missions.
On Earth, microbial biofilms — dense, self-organising communities of microorganisms — are a familiar ingredient in sewage treatment plants and water systems, and their properties have been usefully exploited for engineering purposes. The new article, in npj Biofilms and Microbiomes sets out a path to uncover the role of biofilms in health during long-duration spaceflight, and how spaceflight research can reshape our understanding of these microbial communities on Earth.
Led by researchers at the University of Glasgow and Maynooth University and University College Dublin working within the GeneLab Microbes Analysis Working Group around the NASA Open Science Data Repository, the new study explores biofilms as a major frontier for both human and crop health in space and on Earth.
Biofilms are organised microbial communities structured within a matrix of microbial polymers that defines how microbes interact with hosts. On Earth, these host-biofilm interactions underlie essential functions across human and plant tissues, including nutrient uptake and use, stress tolerance and pathogen control.
In space, evidence suggests these ancient interactions can be compromised, and require coordinated, mechanistic study.
Dr Katherine J. Baxter from the University of Glasgow, first-author and Co-ordinator of the UK Space Life and Biomedical Sciences Association (UK Space LABS), said: “Biofilms are often considered from an infection viewpoint and treated as a problem to eliminate, but in reality they are the prevailing microbial lifestyle that supports healthy biological systems.
“Spaceflight offers a distinctive and invaluable testbed for biofilm organisation and function, and, importantly, evidence so far makes it clear that biofilms need to be better understood, managed, and likely engineered to safeguard health during spaceflight.”
Spaceflight and even spaceflight simulations on earth can alter biofilm architecture, gene regulation, signalling, and stress tolerance, with effects varying across microbial species and experimental platforms. The team outlines a roadmap for applying advanced genetics and biochemical approaches, or “multiomics”, that can uncover biofilm structure and functions across interkingdom multispecies microbial communities interacting within high complexity biological systems.
Dr Eszter Sas, co-author and metabolomics specialist at Maynooth University, said: “Plants will sit at the centre of long-duration spaceflight missions, and plant performance depends on biofilm interactions in and around plant root systems.
“By combining multispecies genetics and biochemistry, modern multiomics has the exciting capability to reveal new biofilm mechanisms from spaceflight responses, and is starting to fill in major gaps in our understanding of signalling and metabolism at the interface of biofilms and plant roots.”
The research was coordinated through the ecosystem of open access data, tools, platforms, and Analysis Working Groups around the NASA Open Science Data Repository, which was an expansion of NASA GeneLab. Experimentation in space is incredibly challenging and costly, so ‘Open Science’ approaches and communities are needed for shared standards, methodology and transparent analysis to ensure what is learnt from each spaceflight mission is maximised and so that discoveries are translated to applications on Earth.
Prof Nicholas J. B. Brereton, senior author at University College Dublin, said: “This work reflects collaboration spanning the globe, with a strong Open Science community for shared thinking and shared discovery.
“The translation of value runs both ways, spaceflight can reveal new biology under unfamiliar stress, and those insights can tell us a lot about how life might survive in space but also inform approaches for health and agriculture on Earth.”
The research includes a call for action on coordinated open biofilm research that moves beyond narrow model systems to support analogue and cross-mission experimentation that accelerates the path from observation to useful intervention.
