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1 Department of Surgery, University of Texas Health Science Center Houston, Houston 77030; 3 Cellular Biotechnology, Johnson Space Center/National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Houston, Texas 77058; and 2 Department of Surgery, Saint Louis School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 63104
Microgravity and stress of
spaceflights result in immune dysfunction. The role of
nutrition, especially nucleotide supplementation, has become an area of
intensive research and significant interest in immunomodulation for
maintenance of cellular immune responses. The studies presented here
evaluate the plausibility of administering nucleotides to obviate
immune dysfunction in an Earth-based in vivo analog of microgravity as
studied in anti-orthostatic tail suspension (AOS) of mice. Mice were
divided into three housing groups: group, isolation, and AOS. Mice were
fed either control chow diet (CD), or RNA-, adenine-, or
uracil-supplemented CD for the 1-wk duration of the experiments. In AOS
mice, supplemental nucleotides significantly increased in vivo lymph
node proliferation and ex vivo lymphoproliferation response to
alloantigen and mitogens, respectively, and interleukin-2 and
interferon-
production. A lower corticosterone level was observed in
uracil-supplemented CD compared with CD. These results suggest that
exogenous nucleotide supplementation, especially uracil, of normal diet
is beneficial in the maintenance and restoration of the immune response
during the microgravity analog conditions.
nutrition; microgravity; mice
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M. J. Pecaut, G. M. Miller, G. A. Nelson, and D. S. Gridley Hypergravity-induced immunomodulation in a rodent model: hematological and lymphocyte function analyses J Appl Physiol, July 1, 2004; 97(1): 29 - 38. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
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