Microbial Communities That Support Human and Plant Health Could Be Key to Life in Space
Microorganisms rarely live alone. Instead, they form dense, organized communities called biofilms, structured assemblages of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes embedded in a shared matrix. These communities cover plant roots, line human tissues, and support essential processes such as nutrient absorption, stress tolerance, and protection against disease. Researchers now suggest that biofilms could also be essential for sustaining life in space.
In a new Perspective article published in npj Biofilms and microbiomesAn international research team explains how studying biofilms during long-duration spaceflight could reshape our understanding of microbial life. The paper proposes a research agenda focused on how biofilms behave under spaceflight conditions and how this knowledge could inform biological systems on Earth.
“Biofilms are often viewed from an infection perspective and treated as a problem to be eliminated, but in reality, they are the dominant microbial lifestyle that supports healthy biological systems,” first author Katherine J. Baxter said in a press release.
Microbial communities as a stress test for life in space
On Earth, biofilms are integrated into living systems. In humans, they help organize microbial communities in the gut, mouth and skin. In plants, biofilms around roots influence nutrient uptake, stress tolerance, and resistance to pathogens. These interactions evolved under relatively stable conditions, including constant gravity and low exposure to radiation.
Some researchers say biofilm-like structures may have played a role in the early stages of life on Earth, providing physical scaffolds that concentrated molecules and supported early metabolic interactions. Seen in this light, biofilms are not only modern biological systems, but also the product of billions of years of evolution. Spaceflight changes several of these conditions at once.
Experiments aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and ground-based simulations show that microgravity and radiation can alter biofilm structure, gene regulation, microbial signaling, and stress responses. Some biofilms become denser and more resilient, while others lose their organization or function. Effects vary between species and experimental platforms, complicating interpretation.
“Spaceflight provides a distinctive and invaluable test bed for the organization and function of biofilms and, importantly, the evidence available so far clearly indicates that biofilms need to be better understood, managed and likely engineered to protect health during spaceflight,” Baxter said.
Learn more: Baby space mice born from frozen stem cells give hope for human fertility in the cosmos
Why plants and biofilms are important for long-duration spaceflight
As space agencies plan longer missions, including sustainable lunar habitats and a possible trip to Mars, plants are expected to play a central role in life support systems. But plant performance depends heavily on microbial biofilms in and around root systems.
To study these interactions, researchers are advancing an approach known as multiomics, which combines multiple types of biological data, including genetic, metabolic, and biochemical information, to capture how complex microbial communities function as integrated systems.
“By combining multi-species genetics and biochemistry, modern multiomics has the exciting ability to reveal new biofilm mechanisms from spaceflight responses, and begins to fill major gaps in our understanding of signaling and metabolism at the interface of biofilms and plant roots,” said co-author Eszter Sas.
From space flight to daily life on Earth
Although the Perspective focuses on spaceflight, its implications are not limited to orbit. Biofilms influence chronic diseases, antibiotic resistance, soil health and ecosystem functioning. Understanding how these microbial communities respond to unknown stress could illuminate new ways to manage them on Earth.
“Spaceflight can reveal new biology under unknown stress, and this information can tell us a lot about how life might survive in space, but also inform approaches to health and agriculture on Earth,” said lead author Nicholas JB Brereton.
Learn more: 40,000-year-old microbes revived in the Arctic could release greenhouse gases
Article sources
Our Discovermagazine.com editors use peer-reviewed research and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review the articles for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. See the sources used below for this article:
