Study of Glioblastoma Cancer Cells Behaviour Inside Space Shuttle

摘要

Space biology is a pretty new discipline, which deals with the reactions of living organisms to the usualconditions of a space flight, namely microgravity and cosmic radiations exposition. Different space research centersand institutions spend a lot of efforts to investigate the effects of the ionizing radiation on the crews and it is knownthat an high level of ionizing radiations increases the incidence of cancer and birth of anomalies. Since 2009 GAUSSgroup is involved in a joint collaboration with Morehead State University (MSU) Space Science Center and Istitutodi Genetica Medica Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza (ICRSS) with the aim to design a biomedical project toinvestigate if the combined effects of microgravity conditions and ionizing radiation increase or decrease the survivalrate of cancer cells. The biological sample consists of Glioblastoma cancer cells, a kind of cancer that can be treatedafter surgery only by radiotherapy using ionizing radiation. This treatment, anyway, results in a very low survivalrate. This project uses different university space platforms: a CubeLab, named GlioLab, on board the InternationalSpace Station and the university microsatellite UniSat-5 designed by GAUSS. A GlioLab/GlioSat precursorexperiment has already flown two times with the Space Shuttle during the missions STS-134 and STS-135. TheGlioSpace Phase 0 or the precursor of GlioLab uses a COTS system, named Liquid Mixing Apparatus (LMA), toboard the biological samples inside the Space Shuttle for thirty days . The LMA allows to board liquids inside a vialbut is not equipped with environment control system. After landing the samples were investigated by researchers atIRCSS in Italy and at MSU in Kentucky. This paper deals with the results obtained during the STS-134 and STS-135missions and with the new evidences on the behavior of this kind of cancer. In particular the results obtained on theDNA analysis give a confirmation of the original idea of GlioLab/Gliosat project justifying the development of thetwo systems.