Heart cells change in space, but what happens when they get back to Earth

The longer stays at the International Space Station (ISS) and the likelihood that people will spend longer periods in space are on the rise, so there is a need to better understand the effects of micro-gravity in cardiac function.

A new research suggests that heart muscle cells have extraordinary abilities to adapt to their environment during and after flying into space.

Scientists examined the cardiac function of astronauts at the International Space Station, where they had remained for five and a half weeks. They found that exposure to micro-gravity changed the behavior of thousands of genes, but they returned to normal 10 days after their return to Earth, the Kosovas broadcasts. “Our study is new, since it is the first to use stem cells from humanity to study the effects of spatial flight in the human heart function”, says the lead author of the study, Joseph Wu, of the Stanford Medical School University.

“Micro-gravity is an environment that has not been understood very well, in terms of its overall effect on the human body, and studies like this can help shed light on how body cells are brought into space, especially when long space missions on the moon and Mars” begin, he adds.

So far, most of the studies on how the heart reacts to gravity have been conducted both in non-human models, whether at tissue level, organs.

Heart cells were placed within the International Space Station for five and a half weeks before returning to Earth for analysis. When they returned to the planet, the cells showed normal structure and morphine.

However, they were adapted by modified the pattern of beating and calcium recycling patterns.

The results showed that 2,635 genes had changed between flying samples, after flight and land control. We're surprised how quickly human heart muscle cells are able to adapt to the environment in which they are located, including micro-gravity. These studies can provide a mirror of cellular mechanisms that astronauts can benefit from health during long space flights,” said Joseph Wu.