Influence of the spaceflight environment on macrophage lineages.

Spaceflight and terrestrial spaceflight analogs can alter immune phenotypes. Macrophages are important immune cells that bridge the innate and adaptive immune systems and participate in immunoregulatory processes of homeostasis. Furthermore, macrophages are critically involved in initiating immunity, defending against injury and infection, and are also involved in immune resolution and wound healing.

Meta-analysis of the space flight and microgravity response of the Arabidopsis plant transcriptome.

Spaceflight presents a multifaceted environment for plants, combining the effects on growth of many stressors and factors including altered gravity, the influence of experiment hardware, and increased radiation exposure. To help understand the plant response to this complex suite of factors this study compared transcriptomic analysis of 15 Arabidopsis thaliana spaceflight experiments deposited in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's GeneLab data repository. These data were reanalyzed for genes showing significant differential expression in spaceflight versus ground controls using a single common computational pipeline for either the microarray or the RNA-seq datasets.

More than a Feeling: Dermatological Changes Impacted by Spaceflight.

Spaceflight poses a unique set of challenges to humans and the hostile Spaceflight environment can induce a wide range of increased health risks, including dermatological issues. The biology driving the frequency of skin issues in astronauts is currently not well understood. To address this issue, we used a systems biology approach utilizing NASA's Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) on spaceflown murine transcriptomic datasets focused on the skin, biomedical profiles from fifty NASA astronauts, and confirmation via transcriptomic data from JAXA astronauts, the NASA Twins Study, and the first civilian commercial mission, Inspiration4.

Mammalian and Invertebrate Models as Complementary Tools for Gaining Mechanistic Insight on Muscle Responses to Spaceflight.

Bioinformatics approaches have proven useful in understanding biological responses to spaceflight. Spaceflight experiments remain resource intensive and rare. One outstanding issue is how to maximize scientific output from a limited number of omics datasets from traditional animal models including nematodes, fruitfly, and rodents.

NASA GeneLab RNA-seq consensus pipeline: standardized processing of short-read RNA-seq data.

With the development of transcriptomic technologies, we are able to quantify precise changes in gene expression profiles from astronauts and other organisms exposed to spaceflight. Members of NASA GeneLab and GeneLab-associated analysis working groups (AWGs) have developed a consensus pipeline for analyzing short-read RNA-sequencing data from spaceflight-associated experiments. The pipeline includes quality control, read trimming, mapping, and gene quantification steps, culminating in the detection of differentially expressed genes.

Comparative Transcriptomics Identifies Neuronal and Metabolic Adaptations to Hypergravity and Microgravity in .

Deep space exploration is firmly within reach, but health decline during extended spaceflight remains a key challenge. In this study, we performed comparative transcriptomic analysis of responses to varying degrees of hypergravity and to two spaceflight experiments (ICE-FIRST and CERISE). We found that progressive hypergravitational load concomitantly increases the extent of differential gene regulation and that subtle changes in ∼1,000 genes are reproducibly observed during spaceflight-induced microgravity.

RNAseq Analysis of Rodent Spaceflight Experiments Is Confounded by Sample Collection Techniques.

To understand the physiological changes that occur in response to spaceflight, mice are transported to the International Space Station (ISS) and housed for variable periods of time before euthanasia on-orbit or return to Earth. Sample collection under such difficult conditions introduces confounding factors that need to be identified and addressed. We found large changes in the transcriptome of mouse tissues dissected and preserved on-orbit compared with tissues from mice euthanized on-orbit, preserved, and dissected after return to Earth.

Mice Exposed to Combined Chronic Low-Dose Irradiation and Modeled Microgravity Develop Long-Term Neurological Sequelae.

Spaceflight poses many challenges for humans. Ground-based analogs typically focus on single parameters of spaceflight and their associated acute effects. This study assesses the long-term transcriptional effects following single and combination spaceflight analog conditions using the mouse model: simulated microgravity via hindlimb unloading (HLU) and/or low-dose γ-ray irradiation (LDR) for 21 days, followed by 4 months of readaptation.

Fluorescent tagged analysis of neural gene function using mosaics in zebrafish and Xenopus laevis.

An important question in the neurosciences is the role of specific gene expression in the control of neural morphology and connectivity. To address this question, methods are needed for expression of exogenous genes in a subset of neurons. This limited and mosaic expression allows the assessment of gene expression in a cell autonomous fashion without environmental contributions from neighboring expressing cells.