Gravitational Experimental Platform for Animal Models, a New Platform at ESA’s Terrestrial Facilities to Study the Effects of Micro- and Hypergravity on Aquatic and Rodent Animal Models

Abstract

Using rotors to expose animals to different levels of hypergravity is an efficient means of understanding how altered gravity affects physiological functions, interactions between physiological systems and animal development. Furthermore, rotors can be used to prepare space experiments, e.g., conducting hypergravity experiments to demonstrate the feasibility of a study before its implementation and to complement inflight experiments by comparing the effects of micro- and hypergravity. In this paper, we present a new platform called the Gravitational Experimental Platform for Animal Models (GEPAM), which has been part of European Space Agency (ESA)’s portfolio of ground-based facilities since 2020, to study the effects of altered gravity on aquatic animal models (amphibian embryos/tadpoles) and mice. This platform comprises rotors for hypergravity exposure (three aquatic rotors and one rodent rotor) and models to simulate microgravity (cages for mouse hindlimb unloading and a random positioning machine (RPM)). Four species of amphibians can be used at present. All murine strains can be used and are maintained in a specific pathogen-free area. This platform is surrounded by numerous facilities for sample preparation and analysis using state-of-the-art techniques. Finally, we illustrate how GEPAM can contribute to the understanding of molecular and cellular mechanisms and the identification of countermeasures.

30 years of CNES parabolic flights for the benefit of the scientific community

“…Above all, it continues to shed light on the mechanisms of human physiology, even during short duration microgravity conditions. Parabolic flights offer a test platform to specifically study physiology or neurology, as cardiovascular adaptation, motor adaptation or environment perception perturbation [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Longer stays in a microgravity environment have effects on the human body that are very similar to those of ageing (loss of bone and muscle mass, degradation of arteries, etc.).…”

Effects of Mechanical Stress Stimulation on Function and Expression Mechanism of Osteoblasts

“…Although resistance training for astronauts can effectively prevent bone loss ( Stein, 2013 ), the adverse effects of the space microgravity environment on the bones of astronauts can last for several years, which highlights the importance of studying bone metabolism under microgravity conditions. The huge cost of in vivo and in vitro experiments on space flight has necessitated the development of a variety of experimental platforms to simulate ground microgravity environments ( Bonnefoy et al, 2021 ; Iordachescu et al, 2021 ). However, fully replicating the changes induced by space microgravity exposure is challenging and, therefore, the develop of more reliable and accurate ground microgravity simulation environments for in-depth research is necessary.…”

Space Aquaculture: Prospects for Raising Aquatic Vertebrates in a Bioregenerative Life-Support System on a Lunar Base

“…Might this capability be common to other aquatic organisms, including fish embryos? Supported by the French space agency (CNES), the Lunar Hatch program plans to study the embryo behavior of European seabass in hypergravity and microgravity in the Gravitational Experimental Platform for Animal Models (GEPAM), a European Space Agency platform to test different gravity environments on animals (Bonnefoy et al, 2021).…”