Space flight and humoral and cellular immunity of animals

Abstract

The use of animal surrogates for the study of the effects of space flight on immune responses is desirable for several reasons. First, animal models are very useful in conditions where the use of human subjects would be difficult. This is certainly true in the space flight environment, where the number of human subjects is small, the human subjects are often too occupied with space flight duties to serve as subjects, and where sampling could be difficult under adverse conditions. Second, because of the intense interest in the immune system, many animal models and reagents already exist that are readily adaptable to space flight studies. Therefore, animal models have been used for many years for space flight studies on immunity. The predominant model used has been the rat, although recently, development of a rhesus monkey model has begun. The focus of this paper will be a description of the results of ground-based and space flight animal models to determine the effects of space flight on immune responses.