Vitamin B12 supply in space?
We humans already have a lot to thank Saccharmomyces cerevisiae yeast for. It is mainly responsible for the production of alcoholic beverages and is also used as baker's yeast. It also produces vitamin B12 and fats. Supplying vitamin B12 to people who spend long periods in space is one of the challenges that the German Aerospace Center in Cologne is working on. Habinauts will only be able to eat a purely vegetarian diet, as this is the only ecological option recommended in a closed system such as a space capsule. However, a purely vegetarian diet will lead to a lack of vitamin B12 and thus to a gradual degradation of the neuronal system. S. cerevisae would be a possible vitamin B12 supplier here, which is cheap to cultivate and provides the necessary vitamins. It is therefore important to investigate the influence of acceleration, weightlessness and radiation, as they occur during a stay in space, on the yeast cells and the production of vitamin B12. The cells were tested and dressed in advance at the Wine Campus Neustadt in order to complete a parabolic flight with a sounding rocket from the MAPHEUS program of the German Aerospace Center. In the early morning of June 13, 2019, one part of the yeast culture was launched into space, while the second part remained on Earth in Kiruna as a reference. After a successful landing, both samples arrived back in Neustadt via Cologne. There, growth experiments have been carried out with both cultures at the Wine Campus, which currently show no differences between the flown part and the reference. The cells were further cultivated and used in wine and beer production. This is the cheapest method for detecting changes to the cells caused by the flight. The sensory evaluation of more than 300 test subjects in a triangle test also showed no significant difference in the smell and taste of the drinks in both an untrained and a trained panel. The majority of the test subjects were unable to distinguish either the "all-beer" or the "all-wine" from the variants produced with the strain that remained on earth. This is an indication that the flight had no effect on the yeast cells and can basically be used to supply the habinauts with vitamin B12.
Friederike Rex is a microbiologist in the Scharfenberger-Schmeer working group at the Institute for Viticulture and Enology at the Rural Area Service Center (DLR) Rhenish Palatinate in Neustadt an der Weinstraße and teaches at the Wine Campus Neustadt
Dominik Rödel is a managing director of the Landau Beer Project
Jens Hauslage is a scientist at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine at the German Aerospace Center