BY ANTHONY KING
Mini-brain organoids sent to space remained healthy until their return one month later but had matured faster than identical organoids on Earth. These surprising results came after the tiny clumps of brain cells were sent to the International Space Station (ISS).
A team from Scripps Research in California, US, had created the organoids using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from people who had multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease. Neural organoids were also derived from people without symptoms for comparisons (Stem Cells Translational Medicine, DOI: 10.1093/stcltm/szae070).
Live samples were launched on a Space X resupply mission to the ISS. They were returned to Earth to study their RNA expression and microanatomy and neural activity.
Cortical and dopaminergic organoids cultured in low-earth orbit (LEO) had ‘lower levels of genes associated with cell proliferation and higher levels of maturation-associated genes’, the team said. The cells exposed to microgravity matured faster and replicated less than those on Earth.
‘We thought that the cells might suffer from growing in space and have higher levels of inflammation. It turned out to be just the opposite,’ says Jeanne Loring, a neurobiologist and founding director of the Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Scripps. Her group, working with the New York Stem cell Foundation Research Institute, grew smaller-than-usual organoids in small, airtight vials. The organoids travelled to the ISS in a miniature incubator. These were just half a millimetre across, notes Loring, and quite spherical.
The goal of her research is to study neural cells in LEO to better understand and treat neurodegenerative disease on Earth, but also to help address potentially adverse effects of space travel on the brains of astronauts.
Loring believes that the faster development might be due to a lack of convection. On Earth, gravity pulls cells to the bottom and heat exchange in the culture media could allow cells to circulate. More missions are now planned. ‘In future I want to ask about the effect of microgravity on the cells that are damaged in Alzheimer’s disease,’ says Loring. ‘Animals don’t get Parkinson’s disease and they don’t get Alzheimer’s. We want to learn more about how human cells react to different environments, including microgravity.’
Visit Blog
