NASA Spaceline Current Awareness List #1,140 14 March 2025 (Space Life Science Research Results)

Astronaut Thomas Pesquet works on the Cardinal Muscle investigation in the Life Sciences Glovebox aboard the International Space Station. Credits: NASA
The abstract in PubMed or at the publisher’s site is linked when available and will open in a new window.
Papers deriving from NASA support:
- Veliz AL, Hughes L, Carrillo D, Pecaut MJ, Kearns-Jonker M.Immunization induces inflammation in the mouse heart during spaceflight.BMC Genomics. 2025 Mar 10;26:229.PI: M.J. PecautNote: ISS results. This article may be obtained online without charge.
Journal Impact Factor: 3.5
Funding: “The spaceflight portion of this research was funded by NASA grant number NNX13AN34G (to M.J.P). Heart tissue was provided to M.K.-J. as a component of the NASA Biospecimen Sharing Program.” - Werneth CM, Huff JL.Chapter 2 – The space radiation environment and human health risks.In: Krittanawong C, editor. Precision medicine for long and safe permanence of humans in space. Academic Press. 2025. p. 11-44.Funding: C.M. Werneth and J.L. Huff are affiliated with NASA Langley Research Center.
- Peanlikhit T, Aryal U, Welsh JS, Shroyer KR, Rithidech KN.Evaluation of the inhibitory potential of apigenin and related flavonoids on various proteins associated with human diseases using AutoDock.Int J Mol Sci. 2025 Mar 12;26(6):2548.PI: K.N. RithidechNote: This article is part of Special Issue “Drug Discovery Based on Natural Products” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijms/special_issues/9VFOI100XX) and may be obtained online without charge.
Journal Impact Factor: 4.9
Funding: “The research was supported by NASA grant #80NSSC19K0435 and a seed grant to Dr. Rithidech from the Department of Pathology Department, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York.” - Lawler JM, Kamal KY, Botchlett RE, Woo SL, Li H, Hord JM, Fluckey JD, Wu C.Metformin ablates high fat diet-induced skeletal muscle hypertrophy and elevation of sarcolemmal GLUT4 when feeding is initiated in young adult male mice.Connect Tissue Res. 2025 Mar 7;1-15.PI: J.M. LawlerJournal Impact Factor: 2.8
Funding: “Funding for this study was provided by generous support from grant awards by the American Diabetes Association (1-17-IBS-145 to C.W), NIDDK (DK095862 to C.W), and NASA NNX13AE45G (to J.M.L.), NASA 80NSSC19K0432 (to J.M.L.).” - Pasetes LN, Goel N.Bidirectional predictors between neurobehavioral measures during total sleep deprivation and baseline and recovery sleep measures.J Sleep Res. 2025 Mar 8;e70031. Online ahead of print.PI: N. GoelNote: This article may be obtained online without charge.
Journal Impact Factor: 3.4
Funding: “This research was funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (grant numbers NNX14AN49G and 80NSSC20K0243 [to N.G.]). This work was also partially supported by the National Institutes of Health (grant number NIH R01DK117488 [to N.G.]).” - Guan Y, Zhang M, Song J, Negrete M, Adcock T, Kandel R, Racioppi L, Gerecht S.CaMKK2 regulates macrophage polarization induced by matrix stiffness: Implications for shaping the immune response in stiffened tissues.Advanced Science. 2025 Mar 8;2417778. Online ahead of print.PI: S. GerechtNote: This article may be obtained online without charge.
Journal Impact Factor: 14.3
Funding: “The research was supported by CDMRP, Department of Defense (W81XWH-20-1-0498) (LR), the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (2U19AI067798-16 (LR), American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellowship (24POST1189855 (YG)), Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-20-1-0356 (SG)), and Translational Research Institute for Space Health through NASA Cooperative Agreement (SNT0101 NNX16A069A (SG)).”
Other papers of interest:
- Qin WQ, Liu YF, Liu JF, Zhou L, Yang SZ, Gu JD, Mu BZ.The metabolic and physiological responses to spaceflight of a lipopeptide-producing Bacillus subtilis.Microb Biotechnol. 2025 Mar 13;18(3):e70111.Note: From the article: “In the present study, a wild-type Bacillus subtilis strain was sent into space carried by a Chinese spacecraft named XZF- SC (Xinyidai Zairen Feichuan-Shiyan Chuan, ‘New Generation Crewed Spaceship – Test Ship’) to explore the potential impact of complex space environmental factors inside the spacecraft. Here, we investigated the phenotypic characteristics, growth, and biofilm formation ability of both the wild-type and spaceflight- exposed strains.” This article may be obtained online without charge.
- Pakroo M, Mortazavi SAR, Mortazavi S.Enhancing astronaut resilience: The role of elevated ROS in adapting to space radiation.J Biomed Phys Eng. 2025 Jan 19. Online ahead of print.Note: This article is a hypothesis and may be obtained online without charge.
- Derobertmasure A, Toh LS, Wotring V, Williams PM, Morbidelli L, Stingl J, Vinken M, Ramadan R, Chhun S, Boutouyrie P.Pharmacological countermeasures for long-duration space missions: Addressing cardiovascular challenges and advancing space-adapted healthcare.Eur J Pharm Sci. 2025 Mar 8;107063.Note: From the abstract: “Future long-duration crewed space missions beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) will bring new healthcare challenges for astronauts for which pharmacological countermeasures (pharmacological countermeasures) are crucial. This paper highlights current pharmacological countermeasures challenges described in the ESA SciSpacE Roadmap, with a focus on the cardiovascular system as a model to demonstrate the potential implication of the challenges and recommendations.”
- Zhang Y, Peng Y, Qu X, Zhang L, Wei T, Wang H, Guo Z, Liu W, Wang X.On-orbit microbial succession patterns of the China Space Station during the construction period.Microbiome. 2025 Feb 5;13(1):73.Note: This article may be obtained online without charge.
- Suh A, Ong J, Waisberg E, Berdahl J, Lee AG.Management of corneal injuries in spaceflight and recommendations for planetary missions.npj Microgravity. 2025 Mar 11;11:8.Note: This article may be obtained online without charge.
- Nguyen T, Ong J, Aman S, Weaver A, Garcia A, Song A, Shakarchi F, Waisberg E, Lee AG.Parabolic flight as a research platform to investigate ophthalmic changes in microgravity.Life Sci Space Res. 2025 Mar 5. Review. Online ahead of print.
- Kern C, Siew K.Beyond the horizon: Why space biology is the next great innovation opportunity.Exp Physiol. 2025 Mar 3. Online ahead of print.Note: This article is an editorial and may be obtained online without charge.
- Guitton MJ.Robots as social companions for space exploration.Comput Hum Behav: Artificial Humans. 2025 Mar;3:100124.Note: From the abstract: “Space is the next border that humanity needs to cross to reach new developments. Yet, space exploration faces numerous challenges, especially when it comes to hazard putting in danger human health. While a lot of efforts are being made to mitigate the impact of space travel on physical health, mental health of space travelers is also highly at risk, notably due to isolation and the associated lack of meaningful social interactions. Given the social potentiality of artificial agents, we propose here that social robots could play the role of social partners to mitigate the impact of space travel on mental health.”
- Cui Y, Liu H, Li Z, Luo B, Zhao J, Tang S, Wang A, Wang G, Du J, Yang J.Investigation on the mechanism of simulated microgravity promoting rat cerebral angiogenesis based on proteomics.Acta Astronaut. 2025 Jun;231:37-46.Note: Hindlimb unloading study.
- Wang S, Zhang N, Shi G, Liu X, Zhou Y, Yang H.Genome-wide chromatin accessibility and transcriptome analysis reveal the up-regulation of immunosuppressive genes in macrophages under simulated microgravity.Life Sci Space Res. 2025 Mar 13. Online ahead of print.Note: A random positioning machine was used in this study.
- Hu Y, Xue D, Wang S, Zhang Q, Zhang X, Yang J, Lv Y, Yan B, Yin Y, Cui Z, Li T, Chen W, Wang X.An auxin response factor regulates tiller angle and shoot gravitropism by directly activating related gene expression in rice.J Adv Res. 2025 Feb 25. Online ahead of print.
Astrobiology, space biology, space medicine, microgravity,