When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.The ISS is a key hub for research, including studies involving bacteria. . | Credit: NASAThe International Space Station (ISS) is a closed ecosystem, and the biology inside it — including its microbial residents — don’t necessarily behave the same way on our home planet.To better understand how microbes may act differently in space, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studied bacteriophages — viruses that infect bacteria, also called phages — in identical settings both on the ISS and on Earth. Their results, published recently in the journal PLOS Biology, suggest that microgravity can delay infections, reshape evolution of both phages and bacteria and even reveal genetic combinations that may help the performance against disease-linked bacteria on Earth.AdvertisementAdvertisement”Studying phage–bacteria systems in space isn’t just a curiosity for astrobiology; it’s a practical way to understand and anticipate how microbial ecosystems behave in spacecraft and to mine new solutions for phage therapy and microbiome engineering back home.” Dr. Phil Huss, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the study’s lead authors, told Space.com.Bacteriophage basicsBacteriophages, or phages, are the most abundant biological entities on the planet, with experts estimating around 1031 or ten nonillion bacteriophages on Earth. Not surprisingly, bacteriophages, a name meaning to “eaters of bacteria,” are found everywhere, shaping the microbial ecosystems in oceans, soils and even our bodies. But one place where phages may have the most human impact is as a possible treatment against antibiotic resistant bacteria and other bacterial infections.These phages work as tiny “delivery systems” wrapped in proteins. But unlike a delivery person giving a delicious pizza, some phages (like the T7 phage used in this study) infect bacteria by attaching to a specific surface feature on the cell — often a molecule embedded in the bacterial cell’s outer membranes — and injecting its genetic material. Once inside, the phage hijacks the bacteria’s machinery to make many copies of itself. Finally, it explodes the bacterial cell and releases a new wave of phage particles that can infect nearby bacteria.This specific attack p …
