Open AccessEffect of Microgravity on Human T Lymphocyte Activation: Experiments in Spacelab and Sounding Rockets
Author(s) -
A. Cogoli,
M. Cogoli-Greuter,
M. A. Meloni,
G. Galleri,
P. Pippia
Publication year - 1970
Publication title -
journal of biological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.218
H-Index - 6
eISSN - 2284-0230
pISSN - 1826-8838
DOI - 10.4081/jbr.2003.10527
Subject(s) - clinostat , microbiology and biotechnology , concanavalin a , sounding rocket , spaceflight , motility , cytoskeleton , lymphocyte , weightlessness , biology , cell , physics , biophysics , aerospace engineering , immunology , in vitro , engineering , biochemistry , astronomy
Several physiological systems are altered by the environment of spaceflight.The results of an experiment carried out in Spacelab-1 have surprisingly shown that the mitogenic activation with Concanavalin A (Con A) of T lymphocytes is nearly completely inhibited (by more than 95%) in microgravity conditions [1].We have investigated the causes of the phenomenon in a series of studies performed in the last 15 years in 6 Spacelab missions (D-1 in 1985, SLS-1 in 1991, IML-1 in 1992, IML-2 in 1994 and dramatic STS-107 in 2003), in sounding rockets (6 missions) and in ground-based simulations in the clinostat. Immune cells have been chosen by us and several other research groups as an important model to study in vitro the influence of microgravity on cell differentiation and genetic expression following transduction of an external signal, on cell motility, formation of cell aggregates and cytoskeleton. [...]