Germs Taken Into Space May Come Back Deadlier

westlake writes "Sounds like the plot for a B-movie, doesn't it? Germs go into space and come back stronger and deadlier than ever. Except, it really happened. In a medical experiment, salmonella carried about the space shuttle in the fall of 2006 proved far more lethal to lab mice than their earth-bound source. 90% dead vs. 60% dead in twenty-six days, with half the mice dying at 1/3 the oral dose. Apparently 167 genes in the space-evolved strain had changed. The likely cause: In microgravity the force of fluids passing over the cells is low, similar to conditions in the gastrointestinal tract, and the cells adapted quickly to the new environment."

Comments

Re:So clearly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or breed better mice.

conditions outside the body

[mrvan]

TFS states that the deadliness is bacause the germs were adapter better to the conditions inside the body, so kill lab mice faster. Outside the lab, these germs will have to pass from host to host, and presumable in between the hosts conditions will be less like microgravity. SO, they might be deadlier, but with less rate of infection. A deadlier disease with lower infection rate might actually be less of a risk: hosts die more quickly and not enough new hosts get infected.

Also: if the new germs are really more well-adapted (ic better at multiplying and spreading), wouldn't they have evolved like that on earth? Especially since the evolutionary step is apparently small enough to be attained by a limited colony in a very limited time?

Re:conditions outside the body

[morgan_greywolf]

A deadlier disease with lower infection rate might actually be less of a risk: hosts die more quickly and not enough new hosts get infected. As long as it's you who gets infected and not me, I agree. ;)

Re:conditions outside the body

[s_p_oneil]

"Also: if the new germs are really more well-adapted (ic better at multiplying and spreading), wouldn't they have evolved like that on earth? Especially since the evolutionary step is apparently small enough to be attained by a limited colony in a very limited time?"

Not necessarily. Evolution is like a simple hill-climbing algorithm in computer programming. It blindly heads in any upward direction without any way of knowing if it will get stuck at the top of a small hill when there is a much bigger hill right next to it. It is unnatural for it to go back downhill (to weaken itself) on purpose to look for bigger hills to climb. But changes to the environment distort the landscape, in some cases turning hills into valleys and forcing life to climb back up or die out.

So most likely the germs had their little hill turned upside down in micro-gravity and were forced to climb up to the top of a new one. Their landscape got turned upside down again when they came back down to Earth, and they ended up finding a bigger hill than the one they started on.

Re:conditions outside the body

[ceoyoyo]

The way I read it is that salmonella that's been raised on petrie dishes for who knows how many generations is poorly adapted to life inside the GI tract, but put it up in space for a bit, under conditions that are more like the intestine than a petrie dish and the bacteria will gain back some of it's adaptation to that environment.

Not really surprising, and unlikely to apply for all microorganisms.

"Space Bugs are Deadlier!" makes a better headline though.

Re:conditions outside the body

[TubeSteak]

The researchers found 167 genes had changed in the salmonella that went to space.

Why?

"That's the 64 million dollar question," Nickerson said. "We do not know with 100 percent certainty what the mechanism is of space flight that's inducing these changes."

However, they think it's a force called fluid shear. TFA talks about fluid shear while many other articles http://news.google.com/news?q=space+biofilm mention that in space, the bacteria forms a biofilm.

More importantly, it seems like every other article answers the "64 million dollar question." The answer:

The researchers' experiment revealed that a genetic switch called "Hfq," which may control more than 160 genes in S. typhimurium, turns on in space and causes S. typhimurium to become three times more virulent than on the Earth's surface. I'm not really sure why this AP article is so deficient.

Re:conditions outside the body

[Anonymous Coward]

A deadlier disease with lower infection rate might actually be less of a risk: hosts die more quickly and not enough new hosts get infected. As long as it's you who gets infected and not me, I agree. ;) Both you and the parent are not paying attention to the true significance of this story. What would happen if bacteria was on a satellite for years and then came back to the Earth? Everybody has always assumed that it was meteors or bioweapons lab leaks that were causing zombie outbreaks, but it could just as easily be supergerms that are so highly evolved that they can control the dead!

Isn't it entirely probable, nay likely even that an old Soviet bioweapons satellite is going to crash sometime with germs that will reanimate the dead on a large scale?

Re:conditions outside the body

[mr_mischief]

I think you just hit on th very idea of foresight. It's one of those things that's supposed to separate the higher mammals from things like bacteria and from natural processes like evolution, after all.

That is, unless someone believes in sentient bacteria or a divine hand of an intelligent God/gods guiding evolution. Anything left to chance and trial will ultimately only rarely see a trade of a short-term negative for a long-term positive, because it would have to happen by chance and without conscious effort.

Re:conditions outside the body

[RubberDogBone]

It's only in fiction that the results of a satellite crash or bioweapon accident or radiation produces zombies or successful mutants who look really weird but still manage to carry a mean chainsaw.

Mutation tends to be more random than not, so you are likely to get organisms that cannot actually DO anything useful (assuming making zombies is useful) or lack any particular advantage over the original species. In fact they may be sterile or weakened.

Irradiated flesh doesn't turn into the Hulk or glow or become self-intelligent. No. It just dies.

As for this particular result of super germs, this is nothing that regular evolution could not have tried. Evolution tries many paths. Not all of them succeed. The ones that don't, die off. In this case, it sounds like the germ is more effective at killing its host animal. The ideal germ wouldn't do that. Rather it would exploit its host to spread itself to other hosts.

Suppose the germ developed a version of itself that was 100% lethal and then killed its own host before the host could spread it. Well the germ dies too, doesn't it? That evolutionary path might be more efficient but it also effectively erases itself. Nature tends to prune out such extremes.

Re:conditions outside the body

[Anonymous Coward]

Mutation tends to be more random than not, so you are likely to get organisms that cannot actually DO anything useful (assuming making zombies is useful) or lack any particular advantage over the original species. In fact they may be sterile or weakened.

Irradiated flesh doesn't turn into the Hulk or glow or become self-intelligent. No. It just dies I have several thousand volumes of books (comic books) that contradict you. Who should I believe, some Nobel prize winning biologist who has only written a couple dozen scientific papers in his life (and only a couple dealing with radiation) or Stan Lee who has published hundreds of volumes dealing with the biological and social effects of radiation?

Suppose the germ developed a version of itself that was 100% lethal and then killed its own host before the host could spread it. Well the germ dies too, doesn't it? Not if it reanimates the dead! Did you miss that part? These germs are going to be so deadly that they take you past 'dead' and bring you to 'undead.' You might even say that they are undeadly! The only thing that they need to survive is a highly dense energy source that their host body could consume--maybe something like the brains of unsuspecting victims.

Re:conditions outside the body

[RealGrouchy]

But, if I become undead, then becoming dead isn't as much of a bother, then, isn't it?

- RG>

Re:conditions outside the body

[mr_mischief]

So you're saying evolution is like MacGuyver?

Re:conditions outside the body

[Anonymous Coward]

But, if I become undead, then becoming dead isn't as much of a bother, then, isn't it? How do you kill that which has no life? :D

I know...

[PixelScuba]

This was first documented in 1988, but they don't want you to know about it.

Re:I know...

[BiloxiGeek]

Try http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051418/ 1958

Re:I know...

[Hognoxious]

I'll raise you: 1953

Vonnegut

[stoolpigeon]

he said the whole point of life is to create germs tough enough to make it through space on a rock. i think he would have chuckled at this.

Re:Mutations

[faloi]

What's the policy for de-bugging astronauts, anyway?

Same as any other de-bug problem. Blame Microsoft and hope for a patch.

But seriously... I know there's some post flight isolation probably accompanied by standard physicals and rehabilitation for those that underwent extended stays in space. My guess is they're relatively thorough, but if if the astronauts are harboring something that isn't detected and they don't show any symptoms it could be a "bad thing." With all the isolation and health checks before, during, and after though, it's probably not a terrible risk. Or at least it's been fairly safe so far.

One Giant Virus for Mankind

[Doc Ruby]

The AIDS plague "patient zero" is estimated to have become infected in 1969, the year men returned from the moon.

This plague that has killed millions of people, primarily among homosexual men, perhaps originated in a tiny canister of testosterone-pumped men trapped in a tiny metal can thousands of miles from Earth, with only each other to turn to in conditions of unprecedented stress and lonliness.

Yep, it does sound like the plot from a B movie - by John Waters.

Bacteria.

[Dunbal]

Just remember WHO this planet belongs to after all.

I for one welcome our mutated Moneran overlords.

Amen to that

[DrYak]

Outside the lab, these germs will have to pass from host to host [...] less rate of infection. A deadlier disease with lower infection rate might actually be less of a risk: hosts die more quickly and not enough new hosts get infected.

This is something like Rule n1 when dealing with epidemiology.
And something that is systematically neglected when the media try to instill mass hysteria about some latest bug.

Compare :
- Plague : kills, but slowly, and very good at transmission - did decimate population.
- Spanish flu : was deadly, but did spread very easily (specially at a post-war time with limited availability of medical means) - did kill quite a few people.

With :
- Ebola : violently deadly in an almost "B movie gore"-style, but sucks at transmission (kills to fast. The virus has almost no time to leave the host before killing it) - never became a widespread disease.
- Avian flu : it was severe in the handful few people who caught it (although one may contest that those people were mostly in developing country and thus had limited access to medical means) BUT it's far from effecient when it comes to transmission (it's a birds' disease, damn it) one must almost live everyday with and almost sleep with chickens to catch it - hasn't been epidemic yet, and won't be, at least not until it mixes with human viruses (not very likely to happen quickly on a large scale).
- Mad cow disease : kills slowly (brain slowly becomes a sponge) but has one of the most improbable mecanism of transmission (one must eat brain or brain derivative) - never was a widespread disease (at least outside cannibal communities).

And same will happen with lysteria-from-outer-space : Yes, it kills mice efficiently. But basically it has changed. It has traded characteristics that where good in surviving on earth, for characteristic that are good for microgravity, and that happen to be good for the intestine too. Thus it will probably completely suck at propagating.

Re:Well...

[RDW]

As some of the more accurate reports on this finding have pointed out, the changes were in the expression levels of the genes rather than in their composition, so no need to invoke the Flying Spaghetti Monster on this occasion! Gene expression is always responding to changes in environmental conditions, so it's not at all surprising that spaceflight is going to cause some measurable effects (hopefully in genes that are functionaly relevant to the observed change in phenotype).

No immune system = no training against one, too !

[DrYak]

This means that the defensive systems that normally adapt to handle them as the mutations arise (think: each strain of the common cold that ends up "going around" your local school/business) don't get a chance until the germ population is sizeable and has the mutated traits spread throughout.

It works the other way too. The outer-space-bacteria has lived and mutated in an environment without or with very few defensive system, to which it normally needs to adapt to handle them and manage to survive and proliferate. Thus the bacteria doesn't get a chance to keep it's knowledge in surviving when it come back to earth.

It's most likely to get pwnd by the first antibody or marcophage it encounters.

This lysteria is an exception because the microgravity environment it was evolving in was actually *closer* to the target environment (human gut) that the places where it usually lives. And then, as the first-poster pointed out, you have a bacteria that is quick to kill lab mice, but will probably suck at transmission because it has traded away its capacity to survive in normal environment.

People are usually marvelled at the incerdible diversity that is brought by evolution. But there's another possible point of view. Whenever some species specialize into something, it's actually losing functions : at least it is losing its polyvalence and ability to survive in diverse environment.
One may consider the human as the pinnacle of evolution given all what we managed to achieve. Or we may consider the humans as a profoundly degenerate species, that has lost its ability to survive in most environment. that is hugely dependent on resources it can't produce anymore but must hunt. We've become so much fragile and incapable biologically, that we had to develop some intelligence to be able to circumvent those short comings. As opposed to a bacteria that can just grow and reproduce in a much wider set of environment without needing to grow a pair of arms to be able to do it.
This pessimistic point of view may be useful sometimes to explain or predict some phenomenon :
- like mass exctinctions
- like why the plain simple cockroaches seem to be better at surviving than mighty dinosaurs
- like what will probably happen to the outer-space-mutant-bugs
- like why intelligent design proponents are wrong with their fundamental concept of "irreductible complexity". It's not complexity, it's actually very weird, funny and circonvoluted side effects of something that was initially a simplification.

Re:Emphasis on 'may' here

[ColdWetDog]

I wonder if there are other mutagenic factors at work here, other than zero-gravity. Cosmic radiation, for instance.

It doesn't really make any difference. All the experiment really shows is that:

1) Grow bacteria
2) Alter environment
3) Change gene expression (via mutation, removal of suppression, whatever biologic mechanism you'd propose)
4) Write grant proposal (the 64 million dollar question - that's one hell of a grant)
5) Profit!

Doing it in space is even way cooler than doing it on the Internet. I smell a patent application. You might even get a free trip to Florida!

Yeah, but no.

[Grendel Drago]

The first confirmed case was from a 1959 sample of blood plasma. Maybe you can blame Sputnik somehow?

So THAT'S what happened with Jason X!

[Fluchs]

I kept telling people how realistic this movie was!
http://imdb.com/title/tt0211443/
"Evil Gets an Upgrade." Man, so ahead of its time.

However

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Not so fast!

This may be true, but remember that, from the salmonella's point of view, the object isn't to kill its host.

The goal is to reproduce and spread. Therefore I predict this salmonella would quickly evolve back to the slightly more dormant variety, and rather quickly.

The bacteria isn't "winning" by killing it's host faster and faster and faster. This is a disadvantageous mutation from the bacteria's point of view . One needn't worry about it "getting into the wild".

Evilution

[Citizen of Earth]

Apparently 167 genes in the space-evolved strain had changed.

But evolution is impossible! The Kansas school board told me so. This must be another NASA conspiracy like the fake moon landings.

Germs

[skeftomai]

When I first read that, I thought it said, "Germans Taken Into Space May Come Back Deadlier."

Exactly, What's More

[BlackGriffen]

Because the fitness landscape for any individual organism must include the effects of the other members of his species more interesting things can occur. The worst part is that either effect can occur - the main population can either deepen the well or make it more shallow. In the former case you have a strong tendency towards monoculture even on non-optimum points - think Windows. In the latter case the organism will tend to "fill up" the local minimum and eventually, population constraints being favorable, spill over into any nearby lower areas. Thus, either creating a new species that splits off or out-competes its parent species. The nice part about this model is that it offers another way for apparently discontinuous jumps to appear in the fossil record even when there is no evidence for similarly discontinuous changes in the environment.

How carefully did *you* read it?

[Grendel Drago]

I'm not talking about David Carr; I'm talking about the listing under "unidentified Kinshasa man". Look again.