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

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., conduc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	International journal of molecular sciences Vol. 22; no. 6; p. 2961
Main Authors:	Bonnefoy, Julie, Ghislin, Stéphanie, Beyrend, Jérôme, Coste, Florence, Calcagno, Gaetano, Lartaud, Isabelle, Gauquelin-Koch, Guillemette, Poussier, Sylvain, Frippiat, Jean-Pol
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Switzerland MDPI AG 15-03-2021 MDPI
Subjects:	adaptation amphibian Animal models Animals Aquatic animals Astronauts Bones development Embryos Experiments Feasibility studies Food Gravitational physiology Gravity Heart rate Humans Hypergravity - adverse effects Immune system Immunology Larva - pathogenicity Larva - radiation effects Life Sciences Lighting Mice Models, Animal Physiology Positioning devices (machinery) Reptiles & amphibians Review Rodentia - physiology Rotors Space exploration Space Flight Spaceborne experiments spaceflight Specific pathogen free Weightlessness - adverse effects Xenopus laevis - physiology spaceflight adaptation development amphibian mice gravity
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Summary:	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.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 ObjectType-Review-3 content type line 23 PMCID: PMC7998548
ISSN:	1422-0067 1661-6596 1422-0067
DOI:	10.3390/ijms22062961