UC San Diego

Human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) fitness declines following exposure to stressors that reduce survival, dormancy, telomere maintenance, and self-renewal, thereby accelerating aging. While previous National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) research revealed immune dysfunction in low-earth orbit (LEO), the impact of spaceflight on human HSPC aging had not been studied. To study HSPC aging, our NASA-supported Integrated Space Stem Cell Orbital Research (ISSCOR) team developed bone marrow niche nanobioreactors with lentiviral bicistronic fluorescent, ubiquitination-based cell-cycle indicator (FUCCI2BL) reporter for real-time HSPC tracking in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven CubeLabs. In month-long International Space Station (ISS) missions (SpX-24, SpX-25, SpX-26, and SpX-27) compared with ground controls, FUCCI2BL reporter, whole-genome and transcriptome sequencing, and cytokine arrays demonstrated cell-cycle, inflammatory cytokine, mitochondrial gene, human repetitive element, and apolipoprotein B mRNA editing enzyme, catalytic polypeptide-like 3 (APOBEC3) deregulation together with clonal hematopoietic mutations. Furthermore, HSPC functionally organized multi-omics aging (HSPC-FOMA) analyses revealed reduced telomere maintenance, adenosine deaminase acting on RNA1 (ADAR1) p150 self-renewal gene expression, and replating capacity indicative of space-associated HSPC aging that may limit long-duration spaceflight.