Signal transduction in cells of the immune system in microgravity
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BioMed Central
Open Access
Review
Signal transduction in cells of the immune system in microgravity Oliver Ullrich*1,2, Kathrin Huber1,2 and Kerstin Lang3 Address: 1Institute of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland, 2Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany and 3Institute of Immunology, Faculty of Biosciences, Witten/Herdecke University, Germany Email: Oliver Ullrich* - [email protected]; Kathrin Huber - [email protected]; Kerstin Lang - [email protected] * Corresponding author
Published: 28 October 2008 Cell Communication and Signaling 2008, 6:9
doi:10.1186/1478-811X-6-9
Received: 19 August 2008 Accepted: 28 October 2008
This article is available from: http://www.biosignaling.com/content/6/1/9 © 2008 Ullrich et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract Life on Earth developed in the presence and under the constant influence of gravity. Gravity has been present during the entire evolution, from the first organic molecule to mammals and humans. Modern research revealed clearly that gravity is important, probably indispensable for the function of living systems, from unicellular organisms to men. Thus, gravity research is no more or less a fundamental question about the conditions of life on Earth. Since the first space missions and supported thereafter by a multitude of space and ground-based experiments, it is well known that immune cell function is severely suppressed in microgravity, which renders the cells of the immune system an ideal model organism to investigate the influence of gravity on the cellular and molecular level. Here we review the current knowledge about the question, if and how cellular signal transduction depends on the existence of gravity, with special focus on cells of the immune system. Since immune cell function is fundamental to keep the organism under imnological surveillance during the defence against pathogens, to investigate the effects and possible molecular mechanisms of altered gravity is indispensable for long-term space flights to Earth Moon or Mars. Thus, understanding the impact of gravity on cellular functions on Earth will provide not only important informations about the development of life on Earth, but also for therapeutic and preventive strategies to cope successfully with medical problems during space exploration.
The "immune problem" in space Early reports about disturbed immune cell function in space date back in the 70ties, where reduced reactivity of blood lymphoid cells has been discovered in crew members of Soyuz spaceships and of Skylab and Apollo [1,2]. Recently, a subclinical re-activation varicella zoster virus (VZV) has been reported in astronauts [3,4], a virus w
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