Simulated Micro-, Lunar, and Martian Gravities on Earth—Effects on Escherichia coli Growth, Phenotype, and Sensitivity to Antibiotics

Allen, Lily A.; Kalani, Amir H.; Estante, Frederico; Rosengren, Aaron J.; Stodieck, Louis S.; Klaus, David M.; Zea, Luis

doi:10.3390/life12091399

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 38 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In the event of an S. aureus infection, antibiotics are commonly administered as a form of treatment strategy. Whilst studies on the ISS have shown the inhibition of gentamicin efficacy [ 27 , 37 , 38 ], our results showed that gentamicin under the simulated microgravity conditions achieves a 4.8 ± 2.05 (OD600)-fold decrease compared to no gentamicin, whereas, under Earth’s gravity conditions, gentamicin achieves a 6.24 ± 2.53-fold decrease compared to no gentamicin. Thereby, gentamicin is contributing to the inhibition of S. aureus proliferation under both tested conditions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 52%

Bacterial Virulence and Prevention for Human Spaceflight

Wazir

Narang

Silvani

et al. 2023

Life

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

With the advancement in reusable rocket propulsion technology, space tourist trips into outer space are now becoming a possibility at a cost-effective rate. As such, astronauts will face a host of health-related challenges, particularly on long-duration space missions where maintaining a balanced healthy microbiome is going to be vital for human survival in space exploration as well as mission success. The human microbiome involves a whole list of micro-organisms that reside in and on the human host, and plays an integral role in keeping the human host healthy. However, imbalances in the microbiome have been directly linked to many human diseases. Research findings have clearly shown that the outer space environment can directly affect the normal microbiome of astronauts when the astronaut is exposed to the microgravity environment. In this study, we show that the simulation of microgravity on earth can mimic the outer space microgravity environment. Staphylococus aureus (S. aureus) was chosen for this study as it is an opportunistic pathogen, which is part of the normal human skin microflora and the nasal passages. This study’s results show that S. aureus proliferation was significantly increased under a microgravity environment compared to Earth’s gravity conditions, which complements previous work performed on bacteria in the outer space environment in the International Space Station (ISS). This demonstrates that this technology can be utilised here on Earth to mimic the outer space environment and to study challenging health-related questions. This in return saves us the cost on conducting experiments in the ISS and can help advance knowledge at a faster rate and produce countermeasures to mitigate the negative side effects of the hostile outer space environment on humans.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 52%

Bacterial Virulence and Prevention for Human Spaceflight

Wazir

Narang

Silvani

et al. 2023

Life

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Rotating Wall Vessels (RWV) operate under the assumption that they provide a similar fluid environment to that of true microgravity by ensuring that cells travel in small circular paths that stay within their depletion zones ( Hammond and Hammond, 2001 ; Klaus, 2001 ). Our results may be paired with calculations estimating the path traveled by microbial cells in RWVs ( Allen et al, 2022 ) to aid in experimental design for future ground-based microgravity research.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rotating Wall Vessels (RWVs), devices typically used to simulate microgravity for ground-based microbiology experiments, are designed to mimic the quiescent environment of microgravity by balancing forces to keep cells within their zone of depletion ( Hammond and Hammond, 2001 ; Klaus, 2001 ). RWVs are a form of clinostat rotating in a 2-dimensional plane, and many forms have been used in experiments, including both deep cylindrical ( Allen et al, 2022 ) and shallow wide ( Chao and Das, 2015 ) devices. (Other microgravity simulation devices, such as 3D clinostats and random positioning machines, involve more complex fluid dynamics and are not discussed here ( Wuest et al, 2017 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The chemical neighborhood of cells in a diffusion-limited system

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Microorganisms follow us everywhere, and they will be essential to sustaining long-term human space exploration through applications such as vitamin synthesis, biomining, and more. Establishing a sustainable presence in space therefore requires that we better understand how stress due to the altered physical conditions of spaceflight affects our companion organisms. In microgravity environments such as orbital space stations, microorganisms likely experience the change in gravity primarily through changes in fluid mixing processes. Without sedimentation and density-driven convection, diffusion becomes the primary process governing the movement of growth substrates and wastes for microbial cells in suspension culture. Non-motile cells might therefore develop a substrate-deficient “zone of depletion” and experience stress due to starvation and/or waste build-up. This would in turn impact the concentration-dependent uptake rate of growth substrates and could be the cause of the altered growth rates previously observed in microorganisms in spaceflight and in ground-simulated microgravity. To better understand the extent of these concentration differences and their potential influence on substrate uptake rates, we used both an analytical solution and finite difference method to visualize concentration fields around individual cells. We modeled diffusion, using Fick’s Second Law, and nutrient uptake, using Michaelis–Menten kinetics, and assessed how that distribution varies in systems with multiple cells and varied geometries. We determined the radius of the zone of depletion, within which cells had reduced the substrate concentration by 10%, to be 5.04 mm for an individual Escherichia coli cell in the conditions we simulated. However, we saw a synergistic effect with multiple cells near each other: multiple cells in close proximity decreased the surrounding concentration by almost 95% from the initial substrate concentration. Our calculations provide researchers an inside look at suspension culture behavior in the diffusion-limited environment of microgravity at the scale of individual cells.

show abstract

“…Gravity is contrasted throughout the entire culture process Excessive magnetic field or magnetic culture medium may influence the biological process of cells is feasible to tilt the clinostat or develop a program to determine the appropriate angular velocity. [29] The clinostat is widely used in the study of simulating microgravity because of its simplicity and availability. [24] It has been reported that 2D clinostat was used to simulate a microgravity environment for cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells and explore the potential mechanism of mitogen-induced phagocytosis.…”

Section: Magnetic Buoyancy Counteracts Gravitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[ 28 ] In addition, to better simulate the required microgravity environment, it is feasible to tilt the clinostat or develop a program to determine the appropriate angular velocity. [ 29 ]…”

Section: Simulated‐microgravity Bioreactorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Advances in Microgravity Directed Tissue Engineering

Cui¹,

Liu

Zhao

et al. 2023

Adv Healthcare Materials

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Tissue engineering aims to generate functional biological substitutes to repair, sustain, improve, or replace tissue function affected by disease. With the rapid development of space science, the application of simulated microgravity has become an active topic in the field of tissue engineering. There is a growing body of evidence demonstrating that microgravity offers excellent advantages for tissue engineering by modulating cellular morphology, metabolism, secretion, proliferation, and stem cell differentiation. To date, there have been many achievements in constructing bioartificial spheroids, organoids, or tissue analogs with or without scaffolds in vitro under simulated microgravity conditions. Here, the current status, recent advances, challenges, and prospects of microgravity related to tissue engineering are reviewed. Current simulated‐microgravity devices and cutting‐edge advances of microgravity for biomaterials‐dependent or biomaterials‐independent tissue engineering to offer a reference for guiding further exploration of simulated microgravity strategies to produce engineered tissues are summarized and discussed.

show abstract

Simulated Micro-, Lunar, and Martian Gravities on Earth—Effects on Escherichia coli Growth, Phenotype, and Sensitivity to Antibiotics

Cited by 10 publications

References 38 publications

Bacterial Virulence and Prevention for Human Spaceflight

Bacterial Virulence and Prevention for Human Spaceflight

The chemical neighborhood of cells in a diffusion-limited system

Advances in Microgravity Directed Tissue Engineering

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About