Effects of different space relevant environmental stressors including Lunar Dust on microorganisms and human cells of different tissues

摘要

Space relevant environmental conditions can have a negative impact on health. This was shown in previous short-term and one stressor-one effect relationship-based experiments as well as it is deduced from in-flight observations concerning microgravity and radiation (former experiments inside and outside ISS, shuttle, rockets like FOTON) and lunar dust exposure (first observations in Apollo and experiments based on Apollo dust). For lunar dust, not studied in detail yet, NASA recognized that the potential biological impacts of lunar environments, including meteoroids and dust exposure need to be investigated further. We defined a set of experiments in an international research group of experts to analyze the effects of environmental stressors, i.e. microgravity, lunar dust simulants, and radiation, the latter being related to possible experiments on Columbus external facilities, on a variety of biological objects such as bacteria, microalgae and different cell types of vertebrates like neurons, blood and skin cells. These represent some of the most relevant cell types of tissues that are of major concern as exposed to the stressors during human stays in closed (lunar) habitats that will rely on bioregenerative life support systems for longer time scales. The results of our comprehensive series of experiments contribute to our knowledge about potential effects of environmental stressors on different biological specimen. Moreover, a combination of stressors simulating for the first time conditions assumed for moon have been tested. Long-term exposure is aimed at in future and the impacts will be assessed with the suggested experimental set-ups. ISS with its internal and external facilities is a well suited test ground for simulating lunar conditions by the given radiation and microgravity regimes similar to moon as well as by using artificial lunar dust simulant. Furthermore, research in such extreme environments enables more detailed knowledge about tissue and cell physiology as well as about regeneration from wounding of e.g. skin with potential benefits for earthbound science and application. First experiments assessing the effects of both, martian and lunar dust simulants were performed on Earth with keratinocytes, fibroblasts, blood platelets, and microalgae as cell types tested. The results revealed cell type and stressor-dependent effects that will need further investigation on Earth before space experiments on ISS shall follow. In general, it can be summarized, that some cells responded to simulates, while others did not.