Candida albicans Gene Expression Under Spaceflight Conditions (NASA STS-115)

NASA's study presents the first global transcriptional profiling of the fungal pathogen Candida albicans grown in spaceflight conditions. Microarray analysis of cells grown for 24 hours on the space shuttle revealed differential regulation of 454 genes (8.4% of analyzed ORFs) compared to ground controls. The research assesses infection risk during space missions and may identify novel disease mechanisms relevant on Earth.

Use Cases

• Modeling fungal pathogen response to microgravity based on differential gene expression data.
• Studying changes in cell aggregation and budding patterns under spaceflight conditions.
• Investigating stress and antifungal resistance mechanisms via ABC transporter and ergosterol gene regulation.
• Analyzing the role of the Cap1 transcriptional regulator in spaceflight-associated phenotypic changes.

Strengths

• Includes first global transcriptional profiling of Candida albicans in spaceflight, a novel dataset.
• Analysis covers differential regulation of 454 specific genes, representing 8.4% of analyzed ORFs.
• Phenotypic observations (cell aggregation, budding patterns) are validated by microscopic and flow cytometry analysis.
• Data originates from a controlled NASA experiment (STS-115 mission) with synchronous ground controls.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is stored in BIN format, which may require specialized tools for access and analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Cells were grown for 24 hours on the space shuttle or as ground-based controls, preserved in RNALater, and stored at -80C. Four samples of each flight- and ground-based controls were harvested for microarray analysis.

Time Range

Experiment conducted during the STS-115 space shuttle mission.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 19:10:00.977547; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Data collected from spaceflight and synchronous ground control experiments.