Effect of Short-Term Hypergravity Treatment on Mouse 2-Cell Embryo Development

Abstract

Though there are numerous biological experiments, which have been performed in a space environment, to study the physiological effect of space travel on living organisms, while the potential effect of weightlessness or short-term hypergravity on the reproductive system in most species, particularly in mammalian is still controversial and unclear. In our previous study, we investigated the effect of space microgravity on the development of mouse 4-cell embryos by using Chinese SJ-8. Unexpectedly, we did not get any developed embryo during the space-flight. Considering that the process of space experiment is quite different from most experiments done on earth in several aspects such as, the vibration and short-term hypergravity during the rock launching and landing. Thus we want to know whether the short-term hypergravity produced by the launch process affect the early embryo development in mice, and howthe early embryos respond to the hypergravity. In present study, we are mimicking the short-term hypergravity during launch by using a centrifuge to investigate its influence on the development of early embryo (2-cell) in mice. We also examined the actin filament distribution in 2-cell embryos by immunostaining to test their potential capacity of development under short-term hypergravity Li-Na Ning and Xiao-Hua Lei are contributed equally to this work.En-Kui Duan exposure. Our results showed that most 2-cell embryos in the hypergravity exposure groups developed into blastocysts with normal morphology after 72 h cultured in vitro, and there is no obvious difference in the development rate of blastocyst formation compared to the control. Moreover, there were no statistically significant differences in birth rates after oviduct transfer of 2-cell mouse embryos exposed on short-term hypergravity compared with 1 g condition. In addition, the well-organized actin distribution appeared in 2-cell embryos after exposed on hypergravity and also in the subsequent developmental blastocysts. Taken together, our data shows that short-term exposure in hypergravity conditions does not affect the normal development and actin filament structures of mouse embryos.

Mechano-biological Coupling of Cellular Responses to Microgravity

“…Considering that the process of space experiment is quite different from most experiments done on earth in several aspects such as the vibration and short-term hypergravity in launching and landing phases, mimicking the short-term hypergravity during launching by using a centrifuge to investigate its influence on the development of early embryo (2-cell) in mice is performed accordingly. There are no significant effects on the normal development and actin filament structures of mouse embryos (Ning et al 2015).…”

Extreme Environmental Stress‐Induced Biological Responses in the Planarian

“…They found that all the planarian trunks exposed to s-ug or 8g correctly regenerated the lost parts [26]. There are results showing that microgravity can induce developmental retardation and cell apoptosis of mouse embryos [27], and hypergravity conditions do not affect the normal development and actin filament structures of mouse embryos [28]. But microgravity can prevent terminal differentiation of embryonic stem cells [29,30].…”