2023-08-26 05:40:30
Not directly related to the content of the article Photo source = European Space Agency (ESA)
Research has shown that long-term exposure to zero gravity or microgravity close to the space environment can lead to changes in the gene expression of immune system T cells and weaken immune function.
Professor Lisa Besterberg’s team at Karolinska Medical University in Sweden announced on the 26th in the scientific journal ‘Science Advances’ that they confirmed the phenomenon of repeated changes and recovery of gene expression in immune T cells exposed to zero gravity through weightless exposure experiments. After being exposed to weightlessness, T cells became more immature than before.
The study was conducted by exposing eight healthy men and women to weightlessness for three weeks using a ‘dry immersion’ method that simulates weightlessness, and then examining T cells in their blood. Blood analysis was conducted before the start, following 7, 14, and 21 days of zero-gravity exposure, and following 7 days of the experiment. As a result, it was confirmed that a significant change occurred in T cell gene expression following 7 and 14 days of exposure to weightlessness, and the change was greatest following 14 days of exposure.
Prof Westerberg said the findings might explain why astronauts are less able to fight infection in space. There are many health-threatening factors in space, such as strong cosmic radiation, and one of them is the immune system changes that occur in astronauts. Weakened immune function makes astronauts vulnerable to infections and may reactivate viruses dormant in the body.
Researcher Carlos Gallardo Dodd (PhD candidate), co-first author of the paper, said, “The T cells have become similar to the ‘naïve’ state in which they have never met an invader, which means that the T cells take longer to activate and have no function to fight tumor cells or infection. It means weakened,” he said.
In the continued experiment, the T cells adapted to the zero gravity following 21 days of zero gravity exposure and their gene expression returned to almost normal. However, analysis conducted following living in normal gravity for 7 days following the end of the experiment showed that some genes returned to their normal state before recovery. “Further research is needed to verify how changes in gene expression lead to changes in the function of immune cells,” Dodd said. can,” he said.
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