Cellular and molecular basis for nutritional countermeasures in the microgravity environment
- Paper number
IAC-06-A1.4.07
- Author
Dr. Alamelu Sundaresan, Texas Southern University, United States
- Coauthor
Dr. Anil Kulkarni, The University of Texas Health Science center, Medical School and Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, United States
- Coauthor
Dr. Neal R. Pellis, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)/Johnson Space Center, United States
- Coauthor
Dr. James DuMond, Texas Southern University, United States
- Coauthor
Dr. Charanjit Kaur, Rep. Of Singapore
- Year
2006
- Abstract
Space exploration implicates heavy burdens on critical physiological functions . An optimal immune response is required to counteract and withstand exposure to pathogens. Counter measure development is an important avenue in space research especially for long term space exploration. Microgravity exposure causes detrimental effects in lymphocyte functions which might impair immune response. Impaired lymphocyte function can be remedied by bypassing cell membrane events. This is done by using compounds such as phorbol myristate acetate (PMA). Since activation in mouse lymphocytes was augmented using nucleotides it was essential to observe their effects on lymphocyte locomotion. Since PMA cannot be administered to both human and animal subjects for immune augmentation, we studied the effects of nucleotides on human lymphocyte locomotion. A nucleotide/nucleoside mixture from Otsuka pharmaceuticals (Naruto, Japan) was used at recommended doses. In lymphocytes cultured in modeled microgravity (microgravity cell culture analog), it is shown in the figure above that the NS/NT mixture used was able to orchestrate locomotion recovery by more than 87% similar to the response documented with PMA in lymphocytes from 3 normal human donors. Both at 12 micromolar and 120 micromolar doses, the NS/NT mixture worked similarly. These are preliminary results leading to the possible use for nucleotide/nucleoside mixture to mitigate immune suppression in microgravity. More studies in this direction with investigation of cellular and molecular mechanisms are required to delineate the role of NS/NT on the immune response in microgravity. Preliminary studies of the effects of NS/NT on human bone and neuronal cells in modeled microgravity are also reported in this study with special emphasis on changes in biomarker gene expression.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-06-A1.4.07.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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