Full-genome study of gene expression in lumbar spinal cord of mice after 30-day space flight on Bion-M1 biosatellite

Abstract

Experiments were conducted on male mice of the C57BL/6J for full genome study of gene expression. The animals were divided into two groups.The 'flight group' mice that had spent 30 days in space and the 'control group' mice that stayed on Earth. The spinal cord of the 'flight' group mice as extracted 14h following the biosatellite's landing. The spinal cord of the control group mice was extracted at the same time.Then the lumbar spinal cord was frozen in liquid nitrogen and kept until the beginning of the study at -80°C. Quality control of the feature was performed using the settings recommended by Agilent Technologies. Signal background was subtracted and the signal intensity of each gene was globally normalized using locally weighted scatterplot smoothing. The analysis suggests that various functional groups of genes in different types of cells in spinal cord may be involved in the development of HLS and some changes in gene expression certainly happened in motor neurons innervating affected skeletal muscles.