Spacecraft Microbiology
The immune system is one of the most affected systems of the human body during spaceflights. The microbial environment of a spacecraft consists of numerous microorganisms, many of them pathogenic, as well as species with biodestructive properties. Biologi
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Spacecraft Microbiology Beatrice Astrid Lauber, Olga Bolshakova, and Oliver Ullrich
6.1
Introduction
During spaceflights, the immune system is one of the most affected systems of the human body (Ullrich and Paulsen 2011). To determine the medical risks of longterm spaceflights and to develop prophylactic and therapeutic arrangements, it is important to know the microbial flora on board of a spacecraft or space station and its specific factors influencing this microflora. It is well known from several space missions that crew members suffered from bacterial and viral infections like influenza, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and B streptococci. Also on long-term habitation on space station Mir and ISS, astronauts suffered from acute airway infections, conjunctivitis, and dental infections, and also reactivation of the Epstein-Barr virus was observed. An overview of microbial infections, pathogens, and general observations is given in Table 6.1. Figure 6.1 shows the variables impacting the risk of infections and their transmission during space travel, on which the following headings are related to.
B.A. Lauber (*) • O. Bolshakova University of Zurich, Institute of Anatomy, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] O. Ullrich Institute of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Machine Design, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 A. Choukèr, O. Ullrich, The Immune System in Space: Are we prepared?, SpringerBriefs in Space Life Sciences, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41466-9_6
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Table 6.1 Microbiological situation aboard of spacecrafts and space stations Microbial pathogens, infections, and colonizations Occurrence of conjunctivitis, dental infections, acute respiratory infections (Ball and Evans 2001) Occurrence of different bacterial and viral infections with influenza, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, B streptococci (Sonnenfeld 2002) Reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus (Pierson et al. 2005) Changes in intestinal (Lencner et al. 1984), oral (Brown et al. 1976), and nasal (Decelle and Taylor 1976) microflora
Decrease of apathogen and increase of pathogen bacteria in nasal flora (Nefedov et al. 1971) Breathing air, Staphylococcus sp., Aspergillus sp., Penicillium sp.; water, Sphingomonas sp., Methylobacterium sp.; surfaces, Staphylococcus sp., Aspergillus sp., Cladosporium sp. (Novikova et al. 2006) Gram-positive and gram-negative microorganisms, Actinomyces and fungi; potable water, evidence of DNA pathogenic microorganisms (La Duc et al. 2004) Activation of opportunistic pathogens, increased density of aerobic gramnegative bacteria and staphylococci on skin, in upper airways and colon (Ilyin 2005) 58 forms of bacteria, 36 forms of molds and yeasts, significant percentage of pathogenic microorganisms, many of them with biodestructive properties (Viktorov et al. 1992) Condensed water: Serratia liquefacien
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