Microgravity and immune cells

Abstract

The microgravity environment experienced during spaceflight severely impaired immune system, making astronauts vulnerable to various diseases that seriously threaten the health of astronauts. Immune cells are exceptionally sensitive to changes in gravity and the microgravity environment can affect multiple aspects of immune cells through different mechanisms. Previous reports have mainly summarized the role of microgravity in the classification of innate and adaptive immune cells, lacking an overall grasp of the laws that microgravity effects on immune cells at different stages of their entire developmental process, such as differentiation, activation, metabolism, as well as function, which are discussed and concluded in this review. The possible molecular mechanisms are also analysed to provide a clear understanding of the specific role of microgravity in the whole development process of immune cells. Furthermore, the existing methods by which to reverse the damage of immune cells caused by microgravity, such as the use of polysaccharides, flavonoids, other natural immune cell activators etc. to target cell proliferation, apoptosis and impaired function are summarized. This review will provide not only new directions and ideas for the study of immune cell function in the microgravity environment, but also an important theoretical basis for the development of immunosuppression prevention and treatment drugs for spaceflight.

Keywords: activation; differentiation; metabolism; microgravity; recovery measures; structure and function.

Figure 1.

The effects of microgravity on macrophage differentiation.

Figure 2.

The effects of microgravity on the number of immune cells.

Figure 3.

The effects of microgravity on immune cell activation. DDR, DNA damage response; Uev1A/TICAM/TRAF, anti-apoptosis pathway; ① PKC-θ participates in the integration of TCR and costimulatory molecule CD28; ② the destruction of T lymphocyte skeleton will lead to the damage of TCR activation.

Figure 4.

The effects of microgravity on immune cell metabolism.

Figure 5.

The effects of microgravity on the structure and function of monocytes. ① The density of filamentous polymers of F-actin was found to be significantly reduced, and the cytosolic network disappeared, mainly distributed near the plasma membrane; ② Vinculin lost its radial orientation and aligned parallel to the cell membrane; ③ the microtubules, responsible for cell division, did not display their typical radial array; they were highly disorganized, and showed a more evident thickening in perinuclear position and a surrounding arborization.

Figure 6.

The effects of microgravity on the structure and function of macrophages.

Figure 7.

The effects of microgravity on the structure and function of neutrophils and NK cells.