The purpose of the experiment is to study how a complex community of bacteria and fungi can withstand the extreme conditions of space flight: increased radiation, weightlessness and overload. The level of radiation exposure in an orbit with an altitude of 370-380 km was more than 200 times higher than the Earth's background and was 30% higher than on the International Space Station. Now biologists will have to evaluate the survival of microorganisms and analyze how space flight affected the frequency of mutations in their DNA.

What is a microbial consortium and why is it needed?

A microbial consortium is a specially selected community of microorganisms (bacteria, yeast) that are jointly cultivated and help each other grow and survive by entering into complex symbiotic relationships. The sample sent into space has increased resistance to extreme conditions, including radiation and drought.

It includes new strains of soil bacteria and fungi selected from natural and technogenically polluted soils of the Rostov region. Each member of this "microbial collective" performs its own function: cyanobacteria within the community are responsible for photosynthesis, actinomycetes and bacilli are responsible for biomass production. Some of them produce substances that can increase soil fertility, while others provide resistance to oxidative stress.

From restoring Earth's soils to gardens on Mars

The main purpose of this consortium is bioremediation, that is, restoring the properties of human—polluted territories or fertile soil after fires. The beneficial substances secreted by bacteria allow humus, the organic matter of the soil, to form faster.

However, the technology has a more ambitious task — the development of lifeless substrates, such as the soils of deserts, the Far North or even other planets. An experiment on the cultivation of these bacteria in artificial "Martian" regolith has been going on in the SFedU laboratory for more than two months in parallel. This soil, although it was brought not from Mars, but from the Mojave desert, perfectly imitates the properties of the red sand covering the surface of the neighboring planet.

"By sending a similar consortium into orbit, we will be able to find out how such a mixture of microorganisms survives space flights, which means that we will be one step closer to the bold dream of gardens on the surface of Mars," said Evgeniya Idelnova, Doctor of Biological Sciences, head of the youth laboratory "Molecular Genetics of Microbial Consortia" at the ABiM SFedU.

After landing, the capsules with biological samples were delivered to Moscow for detailed research. The results of this work will not only allow us to assess the limits of the survivability of terrestrial microorganisms, but will also bring humanity closer to creating sustainable closed ecosystems for life outside the Earth.

A month later, the scientists confirmed that all the microorganisms in the consortium had successfully survived the flight, although some of them had slightly slowed down their growth, and the red yeast Rhodothorula had mutated, showing an increased number of white, unpigmented cells. Now it is necessary to study in detail the genome of "cosmic" microorganisms.

Meanwhile, the first sprouts of barley sprang up in the "Martian" soil treated by a consortium of a similar composition.

The Southern Federal University, being a participant of the strategic academic leadership program "Priority 2030" (national project "Youth and Children"), concentrates efforts on solving the problems of scientific, technological and humanitarian security of the country. As part of this work, the university creates full-cycle production and technological chains based on the network architecture of interaction to respond to "big challenges". The key areas of development cover a number of critical and end—to-end technologies, including technologies for creating biological and chemical agents to increase yields. One of the projects in this area is the strategic technology project "Technologies of Soil Bioengineering", in which researchers from the D. I. Ivanovsky Academy of Biology and Medicine of the Southern Federal University are actively involved.