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Characterization of Biofilm Formation, Growth, and Gene Expression on Different Materials and Environmental Conditions in Microgravity (Morphology of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms)

Metadata Updated: April 10, 2026

Microorganisms' natural ability to live as organized multicellular communities – also known as biofilms – provides them with unique survival advantages. For instance, biofilms are protected against environmental stresses thanks to their extracellular matrix, which could contribute to persistent infections after treatment. Biofilms are also capable of strongly attaching to surfaces, where their metabolism byproducts could lead to surface material degradation. Furthermore, microgravity can alter biofilm behavior in unexpected ways, making the presence of biofilms in space a risk for both astronauts and spaceflight hardware. Despite the efforts to eliminate microorganism contamination from spacecrafts surfaces, it is impossible to prevent human-associated bacteria or fugus from eventually establishing biofilm surface colonization. Nevertheless, by understanding the changes that biofilms undergo in microgravity, it is possible to identify key differences and pathways that could be targeted to significantly reduce biofilm formation. The Space Biofilms project, performed at the International Space Station, contributes to such understanding by characterizing the morphology and gene expression of bacterial and fungal biofilms formed in microgravity with respect to ground controls. Pseudomonas aeruginosa was used as model organism for the bacterial morphology and transcriptomic studies, while Penicillium rubens was used for the fungal morphology study. The data presented on this study page represent the morphology of Pseudomonas aeruginosa using the confocal microscopy assay.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: See this page for license information.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2026
Publisher Open Science Data Repository
Maintainer
Identifier 10.26030/bp7m-0f62
Data Last Modified 2026-04-06
Category Biological and Physical Sciences
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 040d6d62-00f0-4688-8e2c-238887339b5c
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
License https://www.usa.gov/government-works
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 5a7d969b212a221ddc086f807db2ee03b0c24783f151c6f87f7b6ab95da8402c
Source Schema Version 1.1

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