Temporal RNA Integrity Analysis of Archived Spaceflight Biological Samples

Abstract

Spaceflight experiments have utilized model organisms for decades to assess effects of microgravity on biological systems. In many of those experiments, obtaining and assessing tissues from only a few biological systems are of interest to their Principal Investigators. To maximize scientific return from space flown experiments, the remaining tissues are captured, curated, and preserved in the Institutional Scientific Collection (ISC) at NASA Ames Research Center. The international scientific community is encouraged to request these available tissues through NASA’s ISC Biospecimen Sharing Program, and conduct research furthering insights into the field of space biology. The purpose of this study is to evaluate viability of tissues which have been archived for differing lengths of time within the NASA ISC. Garnering information from the NASA ISC tissues – such as downstream functional analysis for the generation of omics datasets – is partly dependent on the state of sample preservation. RNA integrity number (RIN) values were calculated for rodent liver tissues that were part of spaceflight scientific payloads. Rat livers were tested from Spacelab Life Sciences 1 (SLS‐1; 1991), as were mouse livers from Commercial Biomedical Test Module 3 (CBTM‐3; 2011), Rodent Research 1 (RR1; 2014), and Rodent Research 3 (RR3; 2016). It was found that mean RIN values from CBTM‐3, RR1, and RR3 were suitable for downstream functional analysis (RIN > 5), while the mean RIN value for SLS‐1 was not (RIN = 2.5 ± 0.1). This work to analyze RIN values of NASA ISC liver tissues will inform future investigators in their tissue and assay selections. This study lays the foundation for future efforts to understand the quality and viability of different tissues archived within the NASA ISC biospecimen repository. Support or Funding Information NASA Ames Research Center