Biofilms key to long-duration spaceflight: Glasgow University

Scientists develop new research roadmap for health and agriculture

Researchers from the University of Glasgow, Maynooth University and University College Dublin have outlined a new roadmap to study microbial biofilms in space, aiming to safeguard human and plant health during long-duration missions.

As humans plan for longer space journeys, biofilms may be a crucial solution allowing long-term stay in the space, according to a study by researchers from the University of Glasgow, Maynooth University and University College Dublin who collaborated through the GeneLab Microbes analysis working group and NASA’s Open Science Data Repository to push forward research, innovation and understanding of biofilms and their impact on human and plant health during long-duration space missions.

The research highlights that 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, studies indicate these long-standing interactions may be disrupted and need coordinated, detailed investigation. 

“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,” says Katherine J Baxter, first-author and Co-ordinator of the UK Space Life and Biomedical Sciences Association, University of Glasgow.

“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,” adds Baxter.

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The Perspective article in npj Biofilms and Microbiomes calls for advanced genetics and biochemical “multiomics” approaches to understand biofilm structure and function across multispecies communities in complex biological systems.

“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,” says Eszter Sas, co-author and metabolomics specialist, Maynooth University.

According to the statement, the research was coordinated through the NASA Open Science Data Repository, emphasising open science standards, shared methodology and transparent analysis to maximise learning from costly space experiments and translate findings to Earth.

“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,” says Prof Nicholas J B Brereton, senior author, University College Dublin.