• endothelium
• microgravity
• spaceflight
• transcriptome

Exposure to microgravity during space flights (SF) of variable lenght induces a suffering of the endothelium (the diffuse organ made up of cells that line all blood vessels) mostly responsible of health problems reported by astronauts and animals returning from Space.
Of interest to prenosological medicine, the effects of microgravity on astronauts are striking similar to the consequences of sedentary life, senescence and degenerative diseases on Earth, although SF effects are accelerated and reversible. Microgravity therefore represents a significant novel model to better undertstand common pathologies.
A comprehensive cell and molecular biology study is necessary to explain pathophysiological findings after SF in terms of variations in genome biology. This project will study the effects of microgravity on endothelial cells (ECs) cultured on the International Space Station (ISS) through analysis of 1) cellular transcriptome and 2) methylome; 3) DNA damage and cell senescence, 4) miRNome.
This project has been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency and is presently in preparation: we are developing the biological and engineering conditions (with the contribution of Kayser Italia Srl) to get suitable samples after culturing, fixing and storing ECs in Space.
We will culture on the ISS the human microvascular EC line HMEC-1 (CDC, Atlanta, GA USA). At this preparatory phase, we have tested different conditions for implementation of the experiment in Space, focusing on 1) designing the protocol for cell culturing, fixing and storage inside electronically controlled bioreactors; 2) testing several pre-flight incubation protocols to simulate different mission scenarios; 3) evaluating the suitability of fixed samples for subsequent experimental procedures.
We expect the results will contribute to the creation of prevention and rehabilitation protocols for astronauts and for the general public suffering from inflammatory, degenerative and cardiovascular pathologies.