RR-10 Mission: Microbiome Profiling of Mouse Feces from Spaceflight Study

NASA's Rodent Research-10 Mission investigated bone tissue regeneration in microgravity, collecting fecal samples from 20 flight and 62 control mice for microbiome analysis. DNA was extracted from the feces, and shotgun metagenome libraries were sequenced, targeting 10 million clusters at paired-end 250 base pairs. The dataset includes samples from Wild Type and p21-null mice across Flight, Ground, Basal, and Vivarium control groups.

Use Cases

• Compare gut microbiome composition between spaceflight and ground control groups based on the described experimental design.
• Analyze the impact of genetic strain (Wild Type vs. p21-null) on microbiome response to microgravity based on the sample breakdown.
• Investigate correlations between bone regeneration markers and microbial community shifts based on the described injection protocol.

Strengths

• Includes a controlled experimental design with Flight, Ground, Basal, and Vivarium groups totaling 82 samples.
• Sequencing targeted a specific depth of 10 million clusters at 250bp paired-end reads.
• Samples were preserved by flash freezing in liquid nitrogen, a standard for molecular integrity.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The dataset features only a subset of the total mice (e.g., 3 WT Flight samples) from the full experiment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Fecal pellets were collected from euthanized mice after a 28-29 day spaceflight mission, followed by DNA extraction, library preparation, and sequencing.

Time Range

The RR-10 mission occurred over approximately 28-29 days.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 19:49:31.728875; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Samples originated from mice flown on the International Space Station and corresponding ground-based simulators.