Germs taken to space come back deadlier by Delia Cruceru

A research conducted by the International Space Station (ISS) that is to be published in PNAS Online Early Edition, reveals the effects of a microgravity trip in space on Salmonella, a bacteria known for causing food poisoning on Earth. Astronauts from NASA took vials of Salmonella on a 2006 Space Shuttle STS-115 to see how space travel affects germs. Cheryl Nickerson and colleagues at the Centre for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, Arizona State University discovered after feeding mice with the space germ they were three times more likely to get sick and died quicker than others fed identical germs that had remained behind on Earth. "Wherever humans go, microbes go, you can't sterilize humans. Wherever we go, under the oceans or orbiting the earth, the microbes go with us, and it's important that we understand ... how they're going to change," Nickerson explained. They founded that the ISS Salmonella had an altered expression of 167 genes compared to Earth samples. Researchers don't know exactly why that happened but they presume it's a force called fluid shear, meaning that fluids flow over the outer membranes of bacteria differently in low gravity. "There are areas in the body which are low shear, such as the gastrointestinal tract, where, obviously, salmonella finds itself," she said. "So, it's clear this is an environment not just relevant to space flight, but to conditions here on Earth, including in the infected host." They also identified a protein called Hqf that appears to be responsible for the increased virulence of the space salmonella.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070925/ap_on_sc/germs_in_space;_ylt=ArsD0ZWWRy2n2xNtJPR1ykKs0NUE

by Delia Cruceru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.