Understanding the effects of spaceflight on microbial communities is crucial for the success of long-term, manned space missions. Surface-associated bacterial communities, known as biofilms, were abundant on the Mir space station and continue to be a challenge on the International Space Station. The health and safety hazards linked to the development of biofilms are of particular concern due to the suppression of immune function observed during spaceflight. While planktonic cultures of microbes have indicated that spaceflight can lead to increases in growth and virulence, the effects of spaceflight on biofilm development and physiology remain unclear. To address this issue, Pseudomonas aeruginosa was cultured during two Space Shuttle Atlantis missions: STS-132 and STS-135, and the biofilms formed during spaceflight were characterized. Spaceflight was observed to increase the number of viable cells, biofilm biomass, and thickness relative to normal gravity controls. Moreover, the biofilms formed during spaceflight exhibited a column-and-canopy structure that has not been observed on Earth. The increase in the amount of biofilms and the formation of the novel architecture during spaceflight were observed to be independent of carbon source and phosphate concentrations in the media. However, flagella-driven motility was shown to be essential for the formation of this biofilm architecture during spaceflight. These findings represent the first evidence that spaceflight affects community-level behaviors of bacteria and highlight the importance of understanding how both harmful and beneficial human-microbe interactions may be altered during spaceflight.

Inteins, self-splicing protein elements, interrupt genes and proteins in many microbes, including the human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Using conserved catalytic nucleophiles at their N-and C-terminal splice junctions, inteins are able to excise out of precursor polypeptides. The splicing of the intein in the mycobacterial recombinase RecA is specifically inhibited by the widely used cancer therapeutic cisplatin, cis-[Pt(NH 3 ) 2 Cl 2 ], and this compound inhibits mycobacterial growth. Mass spectrometric and crystallographic studies of Pt(II) binding to the RecA intein revealed a complex in which two platinum atoms bind at N-and C-terminal catalytic cysteine residues. Kinetic analyses of NMR spectroscopic data support a two-step binding mechanism in which a Pt(II) first rapidly interacts reversibly at the N terminus followed by a slower, first order irreversible binding event involving both the N and C termini. Notably, the ligands of Pt(II) compounds that are required for chemotherapeutic efficacy and toxicity are no longer bound to the metal atom in the intein adduct. The lack of ammine ligands and need for phosphine represent a springboard for future design of platinum-based compounds targeting inteins. Because the intein splicing mechanism is conserved across a range of pathogenic microbes, developing these drugs could lead to novel, broad range antimicrobial agents.Inteins, self-splicing protein elements that invade a host gene, have been of great interest to the field of biotechnology. The unique ability of an intein to break and form peptide linkages has led to their use in applications (1, 2) ranging from sensors of small molecules (3, 4) and environmental conditions (5) to single step protein purification platforms (6, 7). However, there are still underexplored reactions involving native inteins, notably their susceptibility as targets for antimicrobial drugs (8). In nature, inteins reside in key host proteins across several bacterial and fungal pathogens, including Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Mycobacterium leprae, and Cryptococcus neoformans (9).These splicing elements divide the host protein into two parts, termed N-and C-exteins on the corresponding ends of the intein. In the precursor form, the host protein is usually non-functional because of the tendency of an intein to insert into highly conserved functional regions of the protein. In M. tuberculosis, inteins occur in three genes, recA, sufB, and dnaB (9). The functionality of these proteins is key to the survival of the bacterium and relies upon the splicing of the intein from the respective host proteins. Because inteins do not occur in multicellular organisms, prevention of protein splicing provides a promising strategy for the development of novel antimicrobial therapeutics.Canonical intein splicing occurs by a multistep process (10). First, a nucleophilic attack is initiated by the N-terminal cysteine residue (C1) of the intein on the preceding peptide bond, resulting in thioester formation (Fig. 1A, step 1). A second nucleophilic a...

BackgroundAbundant populations of bacteria have been observed on Mir and the International Space Station. While some experiments have shown that bacteria cultured during spaceflight exhibit a range of potentially troublesome characteristics, including increases in growth, antibiotic resistance and virulence, other studies have shown minimal differences when cells were cultured during spaceflight or on Earth. Although the final cell density of bacteria grown during spaceflight has been reported for several species, we are not yet able to predict how different microorganisms will respond to the microgravity environment. In order to build our understanding of how spaceflight affects bacterial final cell densities, additional studies are needed to determine whether the observed differences are due to varied methods, experimental conditions, or organism specific responses.ResultsHere, we have explored how phosphate concentration, carbon source, oxygen availability, and motility affect the growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in modified artificial urine media during spaceflight. We observed that P. aeruginosa grown during spaceflight exhibited increased final cell density relative to normal gravity controls when low concentrations of phosphate in the media were combined with decreased oxygen availability. In contrast, when the availability of either phosphate or oxygen was increased, no difference in final cell density was observed between spaceflight and normal gravity. Because motility has been suggested to affect how microbes respond to microgravity, we compared the growth of wild-type P. aeruginosa to a ΔmotABCD mutant deficient in swimming motility. However, the final cell densities observed with the motility mutant were consistent with those observed with wild type for all conditions tested.ConclusionsThese results indicate that differences in bacterial final cell densities observed between spaceflight and normal gravity are due to an interplay between microgravity conditions and the availability of substrates essential for growth. Further, our results suggest that microbes grown under nutrient-limiting conditions are likely to reach higher cell densities under microgravity conditions than they would on Earth. Considering that the majority of bacteria inhabiting spacecrafts and space stations are likely to live under nutrient limitations, our findings highlight the need to explore the impact microgravity and other aspects of the spaceflight environment have on microbial growth and physiology.

No abstract