Professor Deok Ho Kim led the team that engineered heart tissue from human stem cells.
The tissue was placed on microchips designed to mimic the environment of the human heart and sent to the International Space Station (ISS) for 30 days of monitoring.
Heart tissue “doesn’t work really well in space,” the team says.
Heart tissue in space suffered a significant decrease in its ability to contract and developed irregular heartbeats.
These changes were quite different from those seen in tissues preserved on Earth. The tissues showed molecular and genetic changes similar to those seen in aging.
The heart tissue was created by culturing human induced pluripotent stem cells and directing their growth into beating heart muscle cells called cardiomyocytes.
The heart tissue was placed in a small tissue chip grown in the laboratory, and in March 2020, the chip was transported to the International Space Station via SpaceX’s CRS-20 mission.
While the heart tissue was in orbit, scientists on Earth received regular updates on the cells’ strength and rhythm every 30 minutes.
Astronaut Jessica Meir maintained the heart tissue on the space station, replacing its nutrient solution weekly and saving samples for further analysis.
The scientists also had a collection of heart tissue created in the same way on Earth and stored in similar containers for comparison.
“An incredible amount of advanced technology has been used in the areas of stem cell and tissue engineering, biosensors and bioelectronics, and microfabrication to ensure the viability of these tissues in space,” said Dr. Kim.
Evaluation of the samples showed that the strength of heart muscle tissue decreased in a low-gravity environment. Furthermore, the space tissue developed irregular heartbeats, which in some cases could lead to heart failure in humans.
Heart tissue in space beats much more slowly than on Earth, taking about five times as long to complete a single beat. However, this dysfunction returned to normal when the tissue was returned to Earth.
Microgravity tissue samples also showed signs of changes in myoblasts, muscle proteins that help the heart contract.
The scientists noticed that the sarcomeres were shorter and less structured, a typical indicator of heart disorders in humans.
The samples also revealed other biological changes: Mitochondria, which provide energy to cells, became larger, rounder and less efficient in alien tissue.
Space tissues also showed increased expression of genes associated with inflammation and oxidative stress.
“Many of these markers of oxidative damage and inflammation consistently show up in scans of astronauts after spaceflight,” said Devin Meyer, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University.
These findings are essential for understanding the health risks of long-duration spaceflight and may lead to new treatments for heart disease.
Kim and his team are now testing the drugs on heart tissue in space to see if they can protect it from the damaging effects of reduced gravity. They hope the drugs might also be useful for maintaining heart health in older people on Earth.
Source: Interesting Engineering
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2024-09-26 14:23:35
