Why do astronauts' bodies waste away? Space Station study points to mitochondria
Source: Nature
Exposure to microgravity aboard the International Space Station causes mitochondria in human cells and in worms to produce fewer proteins, researchers have found.
The work also identified a previously unknown molecular pathway that translates the effects of gravity on mitochondria through the mechanical action of cell adhesion — and which could explain why protein activity drops when those effects are removed. The study was published in Nature Communications on 30 June1.
The findings “might have implications for space travellers”, says Thomas Corydon, a space biologist at Aarhus University in Denmark. “This could be used to understand how we should better prepare astronauts going into space.”
Previous studies2 of cells and mice flown in space and of samples from astronauts have suggested that space flight leads to damage in mitochondria. “We saw the general overview of how mitochondrial dysregulation was happening,” says Afshin Beheshti, a space biomedicine researcher at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania who took part in the earlier work. But the molecular mechanisms through which gravity affects mitochondrial biology are poorly understood, he adds. Earlier research3 also found that reduced gravity had an impact on the transcription of DNA into messenger RNA.
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LINK:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02089-0