Stanley Walls, Soda Diop, Ryan Birse, Lisa Elmen, Zhuohui Gan, Sreehari Kalvakuri, Santiago Pineda, Curran Reddy, Erika Taylor, Bosco Trinh, Georg Vogler, Rachel Zarndt, Andrew McCulloch, Peter Lee, Sharmila Bhattacharya, Rolf Bodmer, Karen Ocorr
Understanding the effects of microgravity on human organs is crucial to exploration of low-earth orbit, the moon, and beyond. Drosophila can be sent to space in large numbers to examine the effects of microgravity on heart structure and function, which is fundamentally conserved from flies to humans. Flies reared in microgravity exhibit cardiac constriction with myofibrillar remodeling and diminished output. RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) in isolated hearts revealed reduced expression of sarcomeric/extracellular matrix (ECM) genes and dramatically increased proteasomal gene expression, consistent with the observed compromised, smaller hearts and suggesting abnormal proteostasis...
November 23, 2020: Cell Reports