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The NASA Twins Study: A multidimensional analysis of a year-long human spaceflight
- Garrett-Bakelman, Francine E;
- Darshi, Manjula;
- Green, Stefan J;
- Gur, Ruben C;
- Lin, Ling;
- Macias, Brandon R;
- McKenna, Miles J;
- Meydan, Cem;
- Mishra, Tejaswini;
- Nasrini, Jad;
- Piening, Brian D;
- Rizzardi, Lindsay F;
- Sharma, Kumar;
- Siamwala, Jamila H;
- Taylor, Lynn;
- Vitaterna, Martha Hotz;
- Afkarian, Maryam;
- Afshinnekoo, Ebrahim;
- Ahadi, Sara;
- Ambati, Aditya;
- Arya, Maneesh;
- Bezdan, Daniela;
- Callahan, Colin M;
- Chen, Songjie;
- Choi, Augustine MK;
- Chlipala, George E;
- Contrepois, Kévin;
- Covington, Marisa;
- Crucian, Brian E;
- De Vivo, Immaculata;
- Dinges, David F;
- Ebert, Douglas J;
- Feinberg, Jason I;
- Gandara, Jorge A;
- George, Kerry A;
- Goutsias, John;
- Grills, George S;
- Hargens, Alan R;
- Heer, Martina;
- Hillary, Ryan P;
- Hoofnagle, Andrew N;
- Hook, Vivian YH;
- Jenkinson, Garrett;
- Jiang, Peng;
- Keshavarzian, Ali;
- Laurie, Steven S;
- Lee-McMullen, Brittany;
- Lumpkins, Sarah B;
- MacKay, Matthew;
- Maienschein-Cline, Mark G;
- Melnick, Ari M;
- Moore, Tyler M;
- Nakahira, Kiichi;
- Patel, Hemal H;
- Pietrzyk, Robert;
- Rao, Varsha;
- Saito, Rintaro;
- Salins, Denis N;
- Schilling, Jan M;
- Sears, Dorothy D;
- Sheridan, Caroline K;
- Stenger, Michael B;
- Tryggvadottir, Rakel;
- Urban, Alexander E;
- Vaisar, Tomas;
- Van Espen, Benjamin;
- Zhang, Jing;
- Ziegler, Michael G;
- Zwart, Sara R;
- Charles, John B;
- Kundrot, Craig E;
- Scott, Graham BI;
- Bailey, Susan M;
- Basner, Mathias;
- Feinberg, Andrew P;
- Lee, Stuart MC;
- Mason, Christopher E;
- Mignot, Emmanuel;
- Rana, Brinda K;
- Smith, Scott M;
- Snyder, Michael P;
- Turek, Fred W
Published Web Location
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau8650Abstract
To understand the health impact of long-duration spaceflight, one identical twin astronaut was monitored before, during, and after a 1-year mission onboard the International Space Station; his twin served as a genetically matched ground control. Longitudinal assessments identified spaceflight-specific changes, including decreased body mass, telomere elongation, genome instability, carotid artery distension and increased intima-media thickness, altered ocular structure, transcriptional and metabolic changes, DNA methylation changes in immune and oxidative stress-related pathways, gastrointestinal microbiota alterations, and some cognitive decline postflight. Although average telomere length, global gene expression, and microbiome changes returned to near preflight levels within 6 months after return to Earth, increased numbers of short telomeres were observed and expression of some genes was still disrupted. These multiomic, molecular, physiological, and behavioral datasets provide a valuable roadmap of the putative health risks for future human spaceflight.
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