Department of Internal Medicine and Radboud Center for Infectious Diseases, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
Department for Genomics & Immunoregulation, Life and Medical Sciences Institute (LIMES), University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
PLoS Pathog. 2020 Jan 30;16(1):e1008153. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1008153. eCollection 2020 Jan.
Human space travel is on the verge of visiting Mars and, in the future, even more distant places in the solar system. These journeys will be also made by terrestrial microorganisms (hitchhiking on the bodies of astronauts or on scientific instruments) that, upon arrival, will come into contact with new planetary environments, despite the best measures to prevent contamination. These microorganisms could potentially adapt and grow in the new environments and subsequently recolonize and infect astronauts. An even more challenging situation would be if truly alien microorganisms will be present on these solar system bodies: What will be their pathogenic potential, and how would our immune host defenses react? It will be crucial to anticipate these situations and investigate how the immune system of humans might cope with modified terrestrial or alien microbes. We propose several scenarios that may be encountered and how to respond to these challenges.
人类太空旅行即将登陆火星，未来甚至会到达太阳系中更遥远的地方。这些旅程也将由地球微生物（搭乘宇航员的身体或科学仪器）完成，这些微生物在抵达时，尽管采取了最佳的污染预防措施，仍会接触到新的行星环境。这些微生物有可能在新的环境中适应和生长，随后重新殖民并感染宇航员。如果这些太阳系天体上真的存在真正的外星微生物，情况将更加具有挑战性：它们的致病潜力是什么，我们的免疫宿主防御系统会如何反应？预测这些情况并研究人类的免疫系统如何应对改良的地球或外星微生物将至关重要。我们提出了几种可能遇到的情况以及如何应对这些挑战。
