Drug-resistant bacteria found in space toilets

The strain, known as Enterobacter bugandensis, was also recently discovered in three hospitals

NASA has discovered four previously unknown strains of antibioticresistant bacteria lurking in the loos aboard the ISS. A team led by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California analysed several bacterial samples collected from the ISS in 2015.

Researchers identified five previously unknown strains of Enterobacter bacteria – a genus with high resistance to antibiotics that often infects hospital patients who have compromised immune systems. “To show which species of the bacteria were present on the

ISS we used various methods to characterise their genomes in detail,” study co-author Kasthuri Venkateswaran, a senior research scientist at the JPL Biotechnology and Planetary Protection

Group, said in a statement. "We revealed that genomes of the five ISS Enterobacter strains were genetically most similar to three strains newly found on Earth."

The team compared the

DNA of the newfound ISS bacteria to that of more than 1,200 Enterobacter strains previously collected on Earth.

The researchers concluded that the newfound strains most closely resemble the species Enterobacter bugandensis. This type of bacteria was recently discovered in three hospitals on Earth where it showed an ability to cause disease in humans and to resist multiple antibiotics.

The bacteria pose no threat to the current crew of the ISS