A publication featured in the Microbiome Journal highlights how NASA scientists performed a genome investigation of the bioburden in the Mars Rover Assembly Facility.
Samples were taken from the Spacecraft Assembly Floor (SAF) cleanroom at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and were quickly concentrated using the Concentrating Pipette (CP), an efficient alternative to traditional, time and labor intensive enrichment methods. These concentrated samples were then divided into smaller portions and analyzed using both the traditional NASA spore assay and advanced techniques including PMA-qPCR, Sanger sequencing, Illumina sequencing, single-cell genomics analysis, and culture. As a result of these analyses, eight additional viable spore-forming genera were identified.
The Concentrating Pipette enabled discovery of a significant number of microbes not detectable by the established NASA standard spore assay (NSA) method.
The Concentrating Pipette (CP) effectively concentrated trace organisms from a NASA cleanroom, which, when combined with advanced analysis techniques like single-cell genomics, enabled precise monitoring and in-depth understanding of the microbial environment in critical spaces.
Read the Publication
Clean room microbiome complexity impacts planetary protection bioburden, Hendrickson et al.
Microbiome Journal 2021
