HYDERABAD: Researchers from the School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad (UoH), and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) characterized four strains of bacteria isolated from the International Space Station (ISS) that could help plants withstand stressful conditions in space.
During the deep-space missions, astronauts carry processed puree packets and cans for their survival. Now the astronauts can grow some of their food, experts have said.
The researchers from UoH discovered that new bacterial strains from different locations aboard the ISS flights may help in creating the 'fuel' to help plants withstand such stressful situations. The bacterial strains belonging to the family Methylobacteriaceae were isolated from different locations aboard the ISS across two consecutive flights. While one strain was identified as Methylorubrum rhodesianum, the other three were previously undiscovered and belonged to a novel species.
Genetic analyses revealed them to be closely related to Methylobacterium indicum. The researchers named the novel species as Methylobacterium ajmalii, in honour of the renowned Indian biodiversity scientist Dr Ajmal Khan, former Professor at Annamalai University.
The genome analysis of Methylobacterium ajmalii strains revealed the presence of genes that are involved in promoting plant growth.
Commenting on the discovery and based on the genomic data, the lead authors said that the strains might possess "biotechnologically useful genetic determinants that may help plants to grow in extreme places where resources are minimal".
However, further experimental validations are being done to prove that it could, indeed, be a potential game-changer for space farming. These research findings are a collaborative effort of three organizations from the USA.
The research teams were led by Dr. Kasthuri Venkateswaran, NASA's JPL, and CC Wang WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction and Professor Appa Rao Podile from the University of Hyderabad (UoH) with expertise on plant growth promoting bacteria and plant microbiome and Dr Ramprasad CSIR-pool scientist.
The authors are looking forward to more exciting discoveries in collaboration with NASA’s JPL, UoH said in a release on Thursday. This work was published in a recent issue of Frontiers of Microbiology.