Bacterial cellulose in kombucha enables microbial life under Mars-like conditions

The chances of survival of the cultures under Mars-like conditions has been studied by an international research team. The term tea fungus or mushroom tea is used to describe a drink made from sugared tea and a culture ofbacteria and yeast. The organisms in the kombucha cultures were destroyed by the Martian environment, but they were still able to produce fermentable sugars. The results were published in a scientific journal.

The European Space Agency supported the scientists of the "Biology and Mars Experiment" in sending the cultures to the International Space Station in 2015. The aim was to learn more about the survival behavior of the organisms under extraterrestrial conditions. After a period of one and a half years, the samples were brought back to Earth and cultivated for two and a half years.

The head of the University of Gttingen's Institute of Veterinary Medicine was responsible for the analysis of the metagenomics of the reactivated cultures and individual kombucha cultures. "Based on our metagenomic analysis, we found that the Martian environment dramatically disrupted the flora of the cultures." We were surprised to find that the Komagataeibacter was still alive.

The results show that the bacterium is probably responsible for their survival. The first evidence that extraterrestrial life could be a marker for the presence of other life forms is provided by this.

The development of drug delivery systems that can be used in space is an interesting aspect of these experiments. The research team was able to show that the total number of antibiotic and metal resistant genes were enriched in the exposed cultures. The scientists said that the difficulties associated with antibiotic resistance in medicine in space should be looked at in the future.

More information: Daniel Santana de Carvalho et al, The Space-Exposed Kombucha Microbial Community Member Komagataeibacter oboediens Showed Only Minor Changes in Its Genome After Reactivation on Earth, Frontiers in Microbiology (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.782175