NASA Spaceline Current Awareness List ##944 9 April 2021 (Space Life Science Research Results)

In case you missed it: BBC News website recently ran a story titled, “Long spaceflights and endurance swimming can ‘shrink the heart.’ ” This news article, available at, https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56559494, highlights the Research Letter: MacNamara JP, Dias KA, Sarma S, Lee SMC, Martin D, Romeijn M, Zaha VG, Levine BD. Cardiac effects of repeated weightlessness during extreme duration swimming compared with spaceflight. Circulation. 2021 Mar 29. The original article appeared in CA List #943 and can be found at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33775108.

 

Papers deriving from NASA support:

 

1

Blachowicz A, Singh NK, Wood JM, Debieu M, O’Hara NB, Mason CE, Venkateswaran K.

Draft genome sequences of Aspergillus and Penicillium species isolated from the International Space Station and crew resupply vehicle capsule.

Microbiol Resour Announc. 2021 Apr 1;10(13).

PI: K. Venkateswaran

Note: ISS results. From the article: “During an ongoing microbial tracking study of the International Space Station (ISS), 30 strains representing seven species belonging to the Penicillium (n = 5) and Aspergillus (n = 2) genera were isolated (1), and whole-genome sequences (WGS) were generated.” This article may be obtained online without charge.

Journal Impact Factor: 0.785

Funding: “Part of the research described was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA. This research was funded by 2012 Space Biology NNH12ZTT001N grant 19-12829-26 under task order NNN13D111T awarded to K.V., which also funded a postdoctoral fellowship for A.B.”

 

2

Lawler JM, Hord JM, Ryan P, Holly D, Janini Gomes M, Rodriguez D, Guzzoni V, Garcia-Villatoro E, Green C, Lee Y, Little S, Garcia M, Hill L, Brooks MC, Lawler MS, Keys N, Mohajeri A, Kamal KY.

Nox2 inhibition regulates stress response and mitigates skeletal muscle fiber atrophy during simulated microgravity.

Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Mar 23;22(6):3252.

PI: J.M. Lawler

Note: Hindlimb unloading study. From the abstract: “Here, we hypothesized that peptidyl inhibition of Nox2 would attenuate disruption of HSP70, MnSOD, and sarcolemmal nNOS during unloading, and thus muscle fiber atrophy. F344 rats were divided into control (CON), hindlimb unloaded (HU), and hindlimb unloaded +7.5 mg/kg/day gp91ds-tat (HUG) groups.” This article may be obtained online without charge.

Journal Impact Factor: 4.621

Funding: “This work was generously supported by grants from NASA (80NSSC19K0432, NNX13AE45G) to J.M.L., the Huffines Institute at Texas A&M University to J.M.H. and J.M.L. and the FAPESP Fellow program to V.G.”

3

Neelam S, Lee A, Lane MA, Udave C, Levine HG, Zhang Y.

Module to support real-time microscopic imaging of living organisms on ground-based microgravity analogs.

Appli Sci. 2021;11(7):3122.

PI: S. Neelam/NASA Postdoctoral Program fellowship

Note: This article, available online without charge, belongs to the Special Issue “Advances in Space Biology: Cell Behavior in Microgravity” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci/special_issues/Space_Biology). The Special Issue also includes articles from previous Current Awareness Lists #892 https://doi.org/10.3390/app9194042 and https://doi.org/10.3390/app10062028; #905 https://doi.org/10.3390/app10124309; #906 https://doi.org/10.3390/app10134433; #926 https://doi.org/10.3390/app10228289; #931 https://doi.org/10.3390/app11010041, https://doi.org/10.3390/app11010110, and https://doi.org/10.3390/app11010068.

Journal Impact Factor: 2.474

Funding: “The MSSF and this development were funded by the NASA Space Biology Program. Srujana Neelam was supported by the NASA Post-doctoral (NPP) program (NNH15C048B) administered by Universities Space Research Association (USRA) for the whole development and manuscript writing, and her participation in editing and revision was supported by the NASA Space Biology program, Grant #80NSSC20K0426. Audrey Lee and Ceasar Udave were supported by the NASA Space Biology Program through the NASA internship program. This development was submitted in the NASA New Technology Reporting System as KSC-14221 on 28 September 2018, entitled ‘Modules to Support Live Microscopic Imaging and Samples on Ground-Based Microgravity Simulator Devices.’ “

4

Nielsen S, White K, Preiss K, Peart D, Gianoulias K, Juel R, Sutton J, McKinney J, Bender J, Pinc G, Bergren K, Gans W, Kelley J, McQuaid M.

Growth and antifungal resistance of the pathogenic yeast, Candida albicans, in the microgravity environment of the International Space Station: An aggregate of multiple flight experiences.

Life (Basel). 2021 Mar 27;11(4):283.

PI: S. Nielsen

Note: ISS results. From the abstract: “This report was designed to compare spaceflight-induced cellular and physiological adaptations of Candida albicans cultured in microgravity on the International Space Station across several payloads.” This article may be obtained online without charge.

Journal Impact Factor: 2.991

Funding: “The studies described herein were generously funded by grants to SMN from NASA through the Ames Space Biology Division: NNX12AH29G and NNX15AB37G.”

5

Prasanna PG, Citrin DE, Hildesheim J, Ahmed MM, Venkatachalam S, Riscuta G, Xi D, Zheng G, van Deursen J, Goronzy J, Kron SJ, Anscher MS, Sharpless NE, Campisi J, Brown SL, Niedernhofer LJ, O’Loghlen A, Georgakilas AG, Paris F, Gius D, Gewirtz DA, Schmitt CA, Abazeed ME, Kirkland JL, Richmond A, Romesser PB, Lowe SW, Gil J, Mendonca MS, Burma S, Zhou D, Coleman CN.

Therapy-induced senescence: Opportunities to improve anti-cancer therapy.

J Natl Cancer Inst. 2021 Apr 1;djab064. Online ahead of print.

PI: S. Burma

Note: From the abstract: “This commentary provides a summary of the discussion at the National Cancer Institute Workshop on Radiation, Senescence, and Cancer (August 10-11, 2020, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD)…”

Journal Impact Factor: 11.577

Funding: “Dr. Burma is also supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNX16AD78G).”

6

Danko DC, Sierra MA, Benardini JN, Guan L, Wood JM, Singh N, Seuylemezian A, Butler DJ, Ryon K, Kuchin K, Meleshko D, Bhattacharya C, Venkateswaran KJ, Mason CE.

A comprehensive metagenomics framework to characterize organisms relevant for planetary protection.

Microbiome. 2021 Apr 1;9(1):82.

PI: C.E. Mason

Note: This article may be obtained online without charge.

Journal Impact Factor: 11.607

Funding: “DCD was supported by the Tri-Institutional Training Program in Computational Biology and Medicine (CBM) funded by the NIH grant 1T32GM083937. We would like to thank the Epigenomics and Genomics Core Facilities at Weill Cornell Medicine, funding from the Irma T. Hirschl and Monique Weill-Caulier Charitable Trusts, Bert L and N Kuggie Vallee Foundation, the World-Quant Foundation, Igor Tulchin- sky, The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance, NASA (NNX14AH50G, NNX17AB26G), the National Institutes of Health (R01ES021006, R25EB020393, 1R21AI129851, 1R01MH117406, U01DA053941), the NSF (1840275), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (OPP1151054) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (G-2015-13964), Swiss National Science Foundation grant #407540_167331 “Scalable Genome Graph Data Structures for Metagenomics and Genome Annotation” as part of Swiss National Research Programme (NRP) 75 ‘Big Data.’ “

 

7

Overbey EG, Saravia-Butler AM, Zhang Z, Rathi KS, Fogle H, da Silveira WA, Barker RJ, Bass JJ, Beheshti A, Berrios DC, Blaber EA, Cekanaviciute E, Costa HA, Davin LB, Fisch KM, Gebre SG, Geniza M, Gilbert R, Gilroy S, Hardiman G, Herranz R, Kidane YH, Kruse CPS, Lee MD, Liefeld T, Lewis NG, McDonald JT, Meller R, Mishra T, Perera IY, Ray S, Reinsch SS, Rosenthal SB, Strong M, Szewczyk NJ, Tahimic CGT, Taylor DM, Vandenbrink JP, Villacampa A, Weging S, Wolverton C, Wyatt SE, Zea L, Costes SV, Galazka JM.

NASA GeneLab RNA-seq consensus pipeline: Standardized processing of short-read RNA-seq data.

iScience. 2021 Mar 29. Online ahead of print.

PIs: S. Gilroy, N.G. Lewis

Journal Impact Factor: 4.447

Funding: “This work was funded in part by the NASA Space Biology program within the NASA Science Mission Directorate’s (SMD) Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS) Division, NASA award numbers NNX15AG56G, 80NSSC19K0132, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (grant number BB/ N015894/1), the MRC Versus Arthritis Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research (grant numbers MR/P021220/1 and MR/R502364/1), the Spanish Research Agency (AEI grant number RTI2018-099309-B-I00, co-funded by EU-ERDF) and the National Institute for Health Research Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre.”

8

Laiakis EC, Shuryak I, Deziel A, Wang YW, Barnette BL, Yu Y, Ullrich RL, Fornace AJ Jr, Emmett MR.

Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Mar 17;22(6):3070.

PI: M.R. Emmett

Note: This article may be obtained online without charge.

Journal Impact Factor: 4.556

Funding: “This work was partially supported by NASA grant NNX15AD65G (P.I. Mark R. Emmett). The project described above was also supported by Award Number P30 CA051008 (P.I. Louis Weiner) from the National Cancer Institute. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Cancer Institute or the National Institutes of Health. The Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, Japan, is a public interest foundation funded by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) and the US Department of Energy (DOE). The research was also funded in part through DOE award DEHS0000031 to the National Academy of Sciences. The views of the authors do not necessarily reflect those of the two governments. Additionally, this research was partially supported by NASA/Texas Space Grant Consortium Fellowship (BLB), and Shirley Patricia Parker and Katherina Siebert Award for Excellence in Oncologic Scholarship (BLB).”

 

9

Wiedmeyer B, To J, Sridharan DM, Chien LC, Snijders AM, Mori H, Pluth JM.

Dose fractionation during puberty is more detrimental to mammary gland development than an equivalent acute dose of radiation exposure.

Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2021 Apr 1;109(5):1521-32.

PI: J.M. Pluth

Journal Impact Factor: 5.859

Funding: “The authors declare that they have no competing interests. This project was supported by NASA Grant Number 80NSSC18K0019 (to J.M.P.).”

 

10

Johns S, Hagihara T, Toyota M, Gilroy S.

The fast and the furious: Rapid long-range signaling in plants.

Plant Physiol. 2021 Mar;185(3):694-706

PI: S. Gilroy

Note: This article may be obtained online without charge.

Journal Impact Factor: 6.902

Funding: “This work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation [IOS1557899 and MCB2016177], the National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NNX14AT25G, 80NSSC19K0126 to S.G.], and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [17H05007 and 18H05491 to M.T.].”

 

11

Kusuma P, Pattison PM, Bugbee B.

From physics to fixtures to food: Current and potential LED efficacy.

Hortic Res. 2020 Mar 30;7(1):56. Review.

Note: This article may be obtained online without charge.

Journal Impact Factor: 3.85

Funding: “This work was supported by the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station, Utah State University, journal paper number 9260; the USDA-NIFA-SCRI award 2018-51181-28365 (LAMP Project); the NASA-CUBES award number NNX17AJ31G, and the Department of Energy through the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Buildings Technologies Office Lighting R&D Program under contract #DEFE0025912 at the National Energy Technology Laboratory on the Mission Execution and Strategic Analysis contract with KeyLogic.”

 

12

Kusuma P, Swan B, Bugbee B.

Does green really mean go? Increasing the fraction of green photons promotes growth of tomato but not lettuce or cucumber.

Plants (Basel). 2021 Mar 27;10(4):637.

Note: This article may be obtained online without charge.

Journal Impact Factor: 2.762

Funding: “This research was funded by the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station, Utah State University, grant number 9448; the USDA-NIFA-SCRI, grant number 2018-51181-28365 (LAMP Project); and NASA-CUBES, grant number NNX17AJ31G.”

 

13

Maza-Márquez P, Lee MD, Bebout BM.

The abundance and diversity of fungi in a hypersaline microbial mat from Guerrero Negro, Baja California, México.

J Fungi (Basel). 2021 Mar 12;7(3):210.

Note: This article may be obtained online without charge.

Journal Impact Factor: 4.621

Funding: “This research was funded by NASA’s Exobiology Project: Nitrogen transformations in photosynthetic microbial mats: Implications for microbial evolution on Earth and the search for life elsewhere.” P. Maza-Márquez, M.D. Lee, and B.M. Bebout are affiliated with NASA Ames Research Center.

 

14

Swinton C, Kiffer F, McElroy T, Wang J, Sridharan V, Boerma M, Allen AR.

Effects of ¹⁶O charged-particle irradiation on cognition, hippocampal morphology and mutagenesis in female mice.

Behav Brain Res. 2021 Mar 29;407:113257. Online ahead of print.

PIs: A.R. Allen; M. Boerma/NSBRI Center for Research on Cardiac, Vascular, and Acute Effects of Space Radiation

Journal Impact Factor: 2.977

Funding: “This work was supported by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) Grant RE03701 through NASA cooperative agreement NCC 9–58, and by the Translational Research Institute through NASA cooperative agreement NNX16AO69A.”

 

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Other papers of interest:

 

1

Camberos V, Baio J, Mandujano A, Martinez AF, Bailey L, Hasaniya N, Kearns-Jonker M.

The impact of spaceflight and microgravity on the human Islet-1+ cardiovascular progenitor cell transcriptome.

Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Mar 30;22(7):3577.

Note: ISS results. From the abstract: “Here, we investigated the transcriptome of adult and neonatal cardiovascular progenitors following culture aboard the International Space Station for 30 days and compared it to the transcriptome of clonally identical cells cultured on Earth.”

 

2

Ludtka C, Silberman J, Moore E, Allen JB.

Macrophages in microgravity: The impact of space on immune cells.

npj Microgravity. 2021 Mar 31;7(1):13.

Note: From the abstract: “The primary methods of simulating microgravity in cell culture and methods used in many of the manuscripts included in this review are two-dimensional or three-dimensional (2D or 3D) cell culture through 2D or 3D clinorotation.” This article may be obtained online without charge.

 

3

Tran KA, Pollock NW, Rhéaume C, Razdan PS, Fortier FA, Dutil-Fafard L, Morin C, Monnot DP, Huot-Lavoie M, Simard-Sauriol P, Chandavong S, Le Pabic G, LeBlanc JP, Lafond D, Marion A, Archambault PM.

Evidence supporting the management of medical conditions during long-duration spaceflight: Protocol for a scoping review.

JMIR Res Protoc. 2021 Mar 29;10(3):e24323.

Note: From the abstract: “Future long-duration space exploration missions, such as traveling to Mars, will create an increase in communication time delays and disruptions and remove the viability of emergency returns to Earth for timely medical treatment. Thus, higher levels of medical autonomy are necessary. Crew selection is proposed as the first line of defense to minimize medical risk for future missions; however, the second proposed line of defense is medical preparedness and crew member autonomy. In an effort to develop a decision support system, the Canadian Space Agency mandated a team of scientists from Thales Research and Technology Canada (Québec, QC) and Université Laval (Québec, QC) to create an evidence-based medical condition database linking mission-critical human conditions with key causal factors, diagnostic and treatment information, and probable outcomes.” This article may be obtained online without charge.

 

4

White WF.

The overview effect and creative performance in extreme human environments.

Front Psychol. 2021 Mar 12;12:584573.

Note: This article may be obtained online without charge.

 

5

Kramer A, Venegas-Carro M, Zange J, Sies W, Maffiuletti NA, Gruber M, Degens H, Moreno-Villanueva M, Mulder E.

Daily 30-min exposure to artificial gravity during 60 days of bed rest does not maintain aerobic exercise capacity but mitigates some deteriorations of muscle function: Results from the AGBRESA RCT.

Eur J Appl Physiol. 2021 Apr 3. Online ahead of print.

Note: Head-down tilt bed rest study. AGBRESA RCT study was conducted in 2019 at the :envihab facility of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne, Germany. This article may be obtained online without charge.

 

6

Irmak T, de Winkel KN, Pool DM, Bülthoff HH, Happee R.

Individual motion perception parameters and motion sickness frequency sensitivity in fore-aft motion.

Exp Brain Res. 2021 Mar 29;1-19. Online ahead of print.

Note: This article may be obtained online without charge.