Detrimental Effects of Microgravity on Mouse Preimplantation Development In Vitro

Abstract

Sustaining life beyond Earth either on space stations or on other planets will require a clear understanding of how the space environment affects key phases of mammalian reproduction. However, because of the difficulty of doing such experiments in mammals, most studies of reproduction in space have been carried out with other taxa, such as sea urchins, fish, amphibians or birds. Here, we studied the possibility of mammalian fertilization and preimplantation development under microgravity (µG) conditions using a three-dimensional (3D) clinostat, which faithfully simulates 10–3 G using 3D rotation. Fertilization occurred normally in vitro under µG. However, although we obtained 75 healthy offspring from µG-fertilized and -cultured embryos after transfer to recipient females, the birth rate was lower than among the 1G controls. Immunostaining demonstrated that in vitro culture under µG caused slower development and fewer trophectoderm cells than in 1G controls but did not affect polarization of the blastocyst. These results suggest for the first time that fertilization can occur normally under µG environment in a mammal, but normal preimplantation embryo development might require 1G.

Microgravity, Stem Cells, and Embryonic Development: Challenges and Opportunities for 3D Tissue Generation

“…However, differences in the proliferation rate of mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells cultured in SMG were shown to be transient, subsiding after the 2nd day, with no difference in cell cycle kinetics compared to 1 g controls (Wang et al, 2011). The reduced implantation efficiency of either zygotes or blastocysts generated in SMG (Wakayama et al, 2009) may also indicate an effect on ES cells that impacts on early developmental stages of mammalian embryos. However, the impaired viability of RWVcultured embryos may result from the shear stress-triggered (Xie et al, 2006) increase in NO free radicals (Cao et al, 2007), and is therefore unclear whether the adverse effects on implantation are caused by microgravity rather than by a side effect of the culturing system.…”

Growing Tissues in Real and Simulated Microgravity: New Methods for Tissue Engineering

“…Due to the construction of an RPM a broad variety of sample enclosures are applied in RPM studies. This ranges from regular T25 flasks 31,32 to multiwell plates, 33 flask on slides, 34 or more dedicated devices. 35 Performing RPM studies, where the best simulation of microgravity is in the center of rotation of the two axes, has limits for the size of the preferred volume for the samples.…”

Dual Inhibition of Src and GSK3 Maintains Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells, Whose Differentiation Is Mechanically Regulated by Src Signaling

“…In order to investigate the regulation of early developmental processes by mechanical factors, Wakayama et al analyzed mammalian fertilization and preimplantation development using a three-dimensional clinostat. They reported the positive and negative effects of microgravity on the expression of markers for pluripotency and differentiation, respectively [4].…”