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Call for articles to cite in the weekly lists: Authors at NASA Centers and NASA PIs—do you have an article that has recently published or will publish in the upcoming weeks within a peer-reviewed journal and is in the scope of space life sciences? If so, send it our way! Send your article to the email address mentioned above. Articles received by Wednesday will appear within that week’s list—articles received after Wednesday will appear the following week.
Papers deriving from NASA support:
1
Meyers A, Land E, Perera I, Canaday E, Wyatt SE.
Polyethersulfone (PES) membrane on agar plates as a plant growth platform for spaceflight.
Gravit Space Res. 2022 Dec 30;10(1):30-6.
https://doi.org/10.2478/gsr-2022-0004
PI: S.E. Wyatt
Note: ISS results. From the introduction: “Plant experiments in microgravity are limited by the capabilities of the growth hardware available for use by the research community aboard the International Space Station (ISS). New and innovative experiments often require adapting existing flight platforms to provide new plant growth capabilities for microgravity research. Advanced Plant Experiment (APEx)-07 required a large quantity of Arabidopsis seedlings to be frozen for return from orbit for tissue-specific omics analysis. The experimental parameters required a system in which seedlings could grow for > 10 days, be frozen, remain sufficiently intact to undergo dissection into root and shoot tissues, and adequately preserved to yield high-quality RNA and protein. To this end, a method was developed adapting polyethersulfone (PES) membrane as a growth substrate on agar in 10 cm square Petri dishes for use in NASA’s Veggie units aboard the ISS.”
Journal Impact Factor: Not available for this journal
Funding: “We would like to thank the crew at KSC, especially Gerard Newsham, Susan Manning-Roach, Anne Marie Campbell, and Lucy Orozco for their support with preflight preparation and ground operations. Funding was partially provided by NASA Biological and Physical Sciences grant #80NSSC19K1481 to S.E.W and I.P.”
2Çelen İ, Jayasinghe A, Doh JH, Sabanayagam CR.
Transcriptomic signature of the simulated microgravity response in Caenorhabditis elegans and comparison to spaceflight experiments.
Cells. 2023 Jan 10;12(2):270.
https://doi.org/10.3390/cells12020270
PI: C.R. Sabanayagam
Note: A clinostat was used in this study. This article is part of Special Issue “Cell and Tissue Behavior in Microgravity” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/cells/special_issues/Cell_Tissue_Behavior_Microgravity). Additional articles will be forthcoming and may be found in the link to the Special Issue. GeneLab is available at https://genelab.nasa.gov. This article may be obtained online without charge.
Journal Impact Factor: 7.666
Funding: “This work was supported by NASA grants NNX12AR59G, NNX10AN63H, and NNX13AM08G, awarded to CRS and Sigma Xi grant G2016100191301836, awarded to ˙IÇ. The BIOMIX computing cluster and the Bioimaging center are supported by Delaware INBRE grant (NIH/NIGMS GM103446) and Delaware EPSCoR grants (NSF EPS-0814251 and NSF IIA-1330446).
The University of Delaware Sequencing and Genotyping Center is supported by the NIH NIGMS IDeA Program Grant #P20 GM103446. None of these funding bodies were involved in the design, data collection, analysis, interpretation of data, or in writing the manuscript.”
3
Lalwala M, Devane KS, Koya B, Hsu FC, Yates KM, Newby NJ, Somers JT, Gayzik FS, Stitzel JD, Weaver AA.
Effect of active muscles on astronaut kinematics and injury risk for piloted lunar landing and launch while standing.
Ann Biomed Eng. 2023 Jan 18.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36652027
PI: A.A. Weaver
Note: From the abstract: “While astronauts may pilot future lunar landers in a standing posture, the response of the human body under lunar launch and landing-related dynamic loading conditions is not well understood. It is important to consider the effects of active muscles under these loading conditions as muscles stabilize posture while standing. In the present study, astronaut response for a piloted lunar mission in a standing posture was simulated using an active human body model (HBM) with a closed-loop joint-angle based proportional integral derivative controller muscle activation strategy and compared with a passive HBM to understand the effects of active muscles on astronaut body kinematics and injury risk.”
Journal Impact Factor: 4.219
Funding: “This study was supported by a NASA Human Research Program Student Augmentation Award to NASA Grant No. NNX16AP89G.”
4
Midani FS, David LA.
Tracking defined microbial communities by multicolor flow cytometry reveals tradeoffs between productivity and diversity.
Front Microbiol. 2023 Jan 5;13:910390.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.910390
PI: L.A. David
Note: This article is part of Research Topic “Emerging Technologies in Microbiome Analysis and Engineering” (https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/22749/emerging-technologies-in-microbiome-analysis-and-engineering#overview). This article may be obtained online without charge.
Journal Impact Factor: 7.666
Funding: “FM acknowledges support from NSF DGE-1545220 and NIH T32DK007664. LD acknowledges support from the Global Probiotics Council, a Searle Scholars Award, the Hartwell Foundation, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the Translational, Research Institute through Cooperative Agreement NNX16AO69A, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease program, and NIH 1R01DK116187. Computational resources were supported by the grant 2016-IDG-1013 (HARDAC+: Reproducible HPC for Next Generation Genomics) from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.”
5
Hanson AM, Young MH, Harrison BC, Zhou X, Han HQ, Stodieck LS, Ferguson VL.
Inhibiting myostatin signaling partially mitigates structural and functional adaptations to hindlimb suspension in mice.
npj Microgravity. 2023 Jan 16;9:2.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36646717
Note: Hindlimb unloading study. This article may be obtained online without charge.
Journal Impact Factor: 4.97
Funding: “Funding for this study was provided by a NASA Cooperative Agreement NCC8-242 to BioServe Space Technologies and in kind contributions of myostatin inhibitor from Amgen Inc.”
6
Bakshi A, Swanson SJ, Gilroy S.
A touchy subject: Ca2+
signaling during leaf movements in Mimosa.
Cell Calcium. 2023 Mar;110:102695.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceca.2023.102695
PI: S. Gilroy
Journal Impact Factor: 4.69
Funding: “Research in the authors’ laboratory is supported by the NSF (MCB2016177) and NASA (80NSSC21K0577, 80NSSC19K0126, 80NSSC22K0024, 80NSSC22K0029, 80NSSC20K0423).”
7
Walsh RFL, Smith LT, Klugman J, Titone MK, Ng TH, Goel N, Alloy LB.
An examination of bidirectional associations between physical activity and mood symptoms among individuals diagnosed and at risk for bipolar spectrum disorders.
Behav Res Ther. 2023 Jan 17;104255.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2023.104255
PI: N. Goel
Journal Impact Factor: 5.321
Funding: “This study was supported in part by the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship to Rachel Walsh and by National Institute of Mental Health R01 grants MH077908, MH102310, and MH126911 to Lauren B. Alloy. Namni Goel was supported in part by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grants NNX14AN49G and 80NSSC20K0243 and National Institutes of Health grant R01DK117488. …”
___________________________________________________
Other papers of interest:
1
Jillings S, Pechenkova E, Tomilovskaya E, Rukavishnikov I, Jeurissen B, Van Ombergen A, Nosikova I, Rumshiskaya A, Litvinova L, Annen J, De Laet C, Schoenmaekers C, Sijbers J, Petrovichev V, Sunaert S, Parizel PM, Sinitsyn V, Eulenburg PZ, Laureys S, Demertzi A, Wuyts FL.
Prolonged microgravity induces reversible and persistent changes on human cerebral connectivity.
Commun Biol. 2023 Jan 13;6(1):46.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36639420
Note: ISS results. This article may be obtained online without charge.
2
Kourtidou-Papadeli C, Frantzidis C, Machairas I, Giantsios C, Dermitzakis E, Kantouris N, Konstantinids E, Bamidis P, Vernikos J.
Rehabilitation assisted by space technology—A SAHC approach in immobilized patients—A case of stroke.
Front Physiol. 2023 Jan 18;13:1024389.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2022.1024389
Note: From the abstract: “The idea behind the presentation of this case relates to utilizing space technology in Earth applications with mutual benefit for both patients confined to bed and astronauts.”
3
Shirah BH, Sen J, Naaman NK, Pandya S.
Automated pupillometry in space neuroscience.
Life Sci Space Res. 2023 Jan 18. Online ahead of print.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lssr.2023.01.004
Note: From the abstract: “Modern pupillometers are automated, thereby providing an objective, accurate, and reliable evaluation of various aspects of the pupillary light reflex at precision levels that were previously unobtainable. There are many gaps in knowledge regarding pupil size and pupillary light reflex in nervous system changes related to space travel given the previous lack of a precise method to quantitatively measure it. Automated pupillometry has not been used previously in space. This novel tool has promising uses in altered gravity environments as a sensitive non-invasive tool to determine alterations due to headward fluid shifts and elevated intracranial pressure. This article discusses the potential use of automated pupillometry in space for monitoring of astronaut health and neurological pathology.”
4
Breen A, Carvil P, Green DA, Russomano T, Breen A.
Effects of a microgravity SkinSuit on lumbar geometry and kinematics.
Eur Spine J. 2023 Jan 16.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36645514
Note: From the abstract: “Twenty healthy male volunteers aged 21-36 without back pain participated. Each lay overnight on a Hyper Buoyancy Flotation (HBF) bed for 12 h on two occasions 6 weeks apart. On the second occasion, participants donned a Mk VI SkinSuit designed to axially load the spine at 0.2 Gz during the last 4 h of flotation. Immediately after each exposure, participants received recumbent MRI and flexion-extension quantitative fluoroscopy scans of their lumbar spines, measuring differences between spine geometry and intervertebral kinematics with and without the SkinSuit. This was followed by the same procedure whilst weight bearing. Paired comparisons were performed for all measurements.”
5
Vahlensieck C, Thiel CS, Christoffel S, Herbst S, Polzer J, Lauber BA, Wolter S, Layer LE, Hinkelbein J, Tauber S, Ullrich O.
Rapid downregulation of H3K4me3 binding to immunoregulatory genes in altered gravity in primary human M1 macrophages.
Int J Mol Sci. 2022 Dec 29;24(1):603.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36614046
Note: Parabolic flight results. This article may be obtained online without charge.
6
Gu R, Liu H, Hu M, Zhu Y, Liu X, Wang F, Wu L, Song D, Liu Y.
D-Mannose prevents bone loss under weightlessness.
J Transl Med. 2023 Jan 9;21:8.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36617569
Note: Hindlimb unloading results. This article may be obtained online without charge.
7
Shishikura M, Tamura H, Sakai K.
Correlation between neural responses and human perception in figure-ground segregation.
Front Syst Neurosci. 2023 Jan 12;16:999575.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2022.999575
Note: From the abstract: “Segmentation of a natural scene into objects (figures) and background (ground) is one of crucial functions for object recognition and scene understanding. Recent studies have investigated neural mechanisms underlying figure-ground (FG) segregation and reported neural modulation to FG in the intermediate-level visual area, V4, of macaque monkeys (FG neurons). However, whether FG neurons contribute to the perception of FG segregation has not been clarified. To examine the contribution of FG neurons, we examined the correlations between perceptual consistency (PC), which quantified perceptual ambiguity in FG determination, and the reliability of neural signals in response to FG.” This article may be obtained online without charge.
8
Barsoumian HB, Sheth RA, Ramapriyan R, Hsu E, Gagea M, Crowley K, Sezen D, Williams M, Welsh JW.
Radiation therapy modulates tumor physical characteristics to reduce intratumoral pressure and enhance intratumoral drug delivery and retention.
Adv Radiat Oncol. 2023 Mar 1;8(2):101137.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36632088
Note: This article may be obtained online without charge.
9
Takano S, Shibamoto Y, Wang Z, Kondo T, Hashimoto S, Kawai T, Hiwatashi A.
Optimal timing of a γH2AX analysis to predict cellular lethal damage in cultured tumor cell lines after exposure to diagnostic and therapeutic radiation doses.
J Radiat Res. 2023 Jan 11.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36634337
Note: This article may be obtained online without charge.
10
Van Drunen R, Eckel-Mahan K.
Circadian rhythms as modulators of brain health during development and throughout aging.
Front Neural Circuits. 2023 Jan 19;16:1059229.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fncir.2022.1059229
Note: This article is part of Research Topic “Common Tune, Different Players: Emerging Molecular Guiding Factors in Development and Activity Dependent Remodelling of Different Neural Circuits” (https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/18714/common-tune-different-players-emerging-molecular-guiding-factors-in-development-and-activity-depende#overview) and may be obtained online without charge.
