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1 Department of Physiological Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32610; 2 Radiobiology Division, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112; and 3 Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, California 94121
As part of an experiment to study the role of corticosteroids in bone changes during spaceflight, male Sprague-Dawley rats (6 wk old, 165 g body weight) were placed in orbit for 17 days, in groups of six, in animal-enclosure modules (AEMs) aboard the space shuttle Columbia (STS-78). Control rats were group housed in a similar manner in ground-based AEMs or standard vivarium cages. Adrenal hypertrophy occurred in flight rats, but bone histomorphometric analyses revealed a lack of significant changes in bone mass and bone formation in these animals. Cancellous bone volume and osteoblast surface in the proximal tibial metaphysis were nearly the same in flight and ground-based rats. Normal levels of cancellous bone mass and bone formation were also detected in the lumbar vertebrae and femoral necks of flight rats. In the tibial diaphysis, periosteal bone formation rate was found to be identical in flight and ground-based rats. The results indicate that, under conditions of group housing in AEMs, spaceflight has minimal effects on bone mass and bone formation in rapidly growing rats. These findings emphasize the need to investigate the importance of rat age, strain, and especially housing conditions for studies of the skeletal effects of spaceflight.
weightlessness; bone histomorphometry; rat housing
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