Bacteria evolved on the International space station.

In a two-year study, scientists found 13 drug-resistant strains of esqueria bugandensis on the international space station. The bacteria were found in different places on the ISS. According to the study, a unique place was chosen to study microbial survival and adaptation and As expected, microorganisms exposed to microgravity could become resistant, potentially compromising the integrity of the astronauts.

An analysis of the ISS strains with the most similar strain here on Earth revealed significant differences, in some cases there were 578 complex mutations, the researchers found that the ISS bacteria had more genes related to important functions such as amino acid transport , also noted several new genes that were only present in bacteria found on the ISS and not on Earth.

This suggests that these bacteria may have adapted to space conditions to survive, using the extensive antibiotic resistance database researchers and doctors identified biotic resistance in different bacterial pathogens, the study revealed that the genomes found on the ISS contained resistance to 23 different multidrugs.

The researchers state that the objective of the study is to collect important information to guarantee human biosafety, this is important especially in controlled environments on earth such as intensive care units, hospitals and operating rooms, their findings pave the way for a deeper microbial dynamics in extreme environments.

This research establishes a solid foundation for future hypotheses and expands the Horizons of Research in Microbial Ecology which can be read if you are interested in delving deeper into the topic at the source.