Pitting Corrosion Within Bioreactors for Space Cell-Culture Contaminated by Paenibacillus glucanolyticus, a Case Report

Performing cell biology experiments in space imposes the use of hardware that essentially allows fluid exchange in a contained environment. Given the technical and logistical peculiarities, the limited opportunities and the high cost of access to space, a great effort during mission preparation of scientific studies is devoted to preventing loss of the experiment. The European Space Agency (ESA) requires, at the end of the preparation phase, the execution of an Experiment Sequence Test (EST), a dry-run version of the space experiment to check all procedures. At conclusion of the EST of our experiment ‘ENDO’ (ESA ILSRA-2009-1026), we found pitting corrosion of metal parts and biofilm formation within the cell-culture devices. The subsequent chemical (spectral assays), instrumental (OGP SmartScope) and microbiological (MALDI-TOF, 16S rRNA gene sequencing) investigations allowed the identification in contaminated material of Paenibacillus glucanolyticus, a ubiquitous, aerobic, facultative anaerobic, endospore forming, acid-producing, Gram-positive microorganism. A concurrence of P. glucanolyticus contamination and galvanic corrosion determined massive fouling, rust precipitation and damage to cells and cell-culture devices being, to our knowledge, the association between this microbe and corrosion never reported before in literature. As a consequence of the episode a critical procedure of experiment set up, i.e. hardware sterilization, was modified. The ENDO experiment was successfully launched to the International Space Station on September 2nd 2015 and returned to the PI laboratory on September 13th, with all cell culture samples in optimal condition.