Fact Sheet

Text Size

International Caenorhabditis elegans Experiment: Physiological Study of Nematode Worms in Weightlessness (ICE-First)
02.20.09

Overview | Description | Applications | Operations | Results | Publications | Images

Experiment/Payload Overview

Brief Summary

ICE-First studied radiobiology (effects of radiation on living organisms), muscle proteins, cells, genomics (study of genes), development, ageing and apoptosis (controlled cell death) of C. elegans in microgravity. C. elegans (nematode worms) are a relatively simple organism that is used as a model for a wide variety of biological processes. This investigation provided a unique opportunity for scientists from several countries to work as a team to design a single experiment that would produce valuable results for scientists across multiple disciplines.

Principal Investigator

  • Nicole Buckley, Canadian Space Agency, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
  • Ann Rose, Ph.D., University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
  • Catharine Conley, Ph.D., Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
  • Laurent Segalat, Universite Lyon, Villeurbanne, France
  • Hiroaki Kagawa, Japanese eXploration Agency, Tsukuba City, Japan
  • Noriaki Ishioka, Japanese eXploration Agency, Tsukuba City, Japan
  • Stuart Kim, Ph.D., Stanford University, Stanford, CA
  • Shuji Honda, Japanese eXploration Agency, Tsukuba City, Japan
  • Yuko Honda, Japanese eXploration Agency, Tsukuba City, Japan
  • Beverly Girten, Ph.D., Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
  • Akira Higashitani, Ph.D., Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
  • Atsushi Higashitani, Ph.D., Iwate University, Morioka, Japan

    • Co-Investigator(s)/Collaborator(s)

    Information Pending

    Payload Developer


    Centre National d'Etudes Spatiale, Paris, France
    Canadian Space Agency, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
    European Space Agency, Noordwijk, The Netherlands
    National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Moffett Field, CA
    Japanese eXploration Agency, Tsukuba City, Japan
    Space Research Organization of the Netherlands, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Sponsoring Agency

    European Space Agency (ESA)

    Expeditions Assigned

    |8|

    Previous ISS Missions

    The precursor to ICE-First (flown during Expedition 8), BRIC-60/C. elegans, flew on STS-107 (Columbia). Following the break up of Columbia upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, the samples were located among debris in East Texas and returned to NASA.

    ^ back to top


    Experiment/Payload Description

    Research Summary

    • ICE-First will help to develop a clear picture of how the environment of space has an affect on organisms, using C. elegans as a model. Genes of C. elegans produced on Earth and in space will be studied to note where differences occur in the genome of C. elegans and can further provide direction of where to develop research in the future, either on similar organisms or humans.


    • ICE-First studied radiobiology (effects of radiation on living organisms), muscle proteins, cells, genomics (study of genes), development, ageing and apoptosis (controlled cell death) of C. elegansin microgravity.


    • This investigation provided a unique opportunity for scientists from several countries to work as a team to design a single experiment that would produce valuable results for scientists across several disciplines.

    Description

    ICE-first consists of several experiments, which will be investigating the effects of spaceflight on a model organism of the nematode worm family (Caenorhabditis elegans) and to develop links to human physiology in space. The organism chosen is known to be able to mate, reproduce and develop apparently normally during space flight.

    One set of experiments will study the effect that radiation has on genetic stability. It will study a gene, which is essential for long-term survival and fertility in the nematode worm and compare how the gene expression differs on Earth to the weightlessness of space. The experiment will further compare the offspring of the worms from the space experiment to those from the ground experiment for any mutation to a specific element of DNA called guanine.

    A second experiment is a study into muscle growth and endurance. The first part of this experiment will look at a protein involved in muscle contraction and try to establish if there is a link with this protein and muscle atrophy. The second part will look for a defective protein produced by the mutated gene in the common form of muscular dystrophy a degenerative disease causing muscles to steadily atrophy.

    The third experiment will do an analysis of almost the complete genome of the nematode worm in weightlessness to see which genes react differently in space than on Earth. It is expected that genes involved with radiation damage-repair exhibit an overreaction in space, and genes involved in muscle contraction and formation exhibit an under reaction.

    The fourth experiment will study the development of nematode worm larvae in space. The cuticles (the protective membranes covering the worms), which the larvae shed during development from the larval phase, have a correlation to the larvae length. These will be looked at to determine the number of larvae, which developed and how the development progressed. This data will be compared against the ground experiment, which has already been carried out.

    The last experiment will try to determine if microtubules and microfilaments in specific cells of the nematode worm are sensitive to weightlessness.

    ^ back to top


    Applications

    Space Applications

    Information Pending

    Earth Applications

    Information Pending

    ^ back to top


    Operations

    Operational Requirements

    Information Pending

    Operational Protocols

    The C. elegans samples were transported to the launch pad in Baikonour, transferred into the Kubik Topaz (incubator with microgravity plate) and kept at 20 degrees C. Three days after the launch, 3 samples were transferred into the Kubik Amber (incubator with centrifuge), while the other five samples remained in Kubik Topaz. On the last flight day, four of the C. elegans samples will be injected with a fixative by the crew and all of the samples will be placed in Kubic Topaz on the Soyuz and return to Earth. Upon return to Earth the contatiners were filmed to evaluate the behavior of the C. elegans after space flight. The small bags containing the culture of the worms were either frozen or refrigerated until they were returned to their respective principal investigations for detailed analysis.

    ^ back to top


    Results/More Information

    It is well known that radiation causes mutational damage in organisms, but little is known about the biological effects of long term exposure to radiation in space. The radiation environment on the International Space Station (ISS) has been physically measured utilizing different techniques in experiments such as BBND, EVARM, DOSMAP and Matroshka; however the actual biological affects of long term exposure to the radiation environment on ISS has not been studied. Biological systems are not passive recording instruments, they respond differently under different conditions; hence it is important to collect data from a living organism. C. elegans a self-fertilizing hermaphroditic nematode, can be used as a biological dosimeter for such investigations. The ICE-First investigation studied the biological functions of radiobiology, muscle proteins, cells, genomics, development, ageing and apoptosis on ISS.

    Previous studies of animals indicated that space flight caused an increase in apoptosis. The Apoptosis investigation of the ICE-First experiment focused on DNA damage induced checkpoint apoptosis, which is involved in the maintenance of genomic stability through the elimination of cells that have failed to repair DNA lesions. ICE-First showed that during normal cell development approximately 300 germ cells of C. elegans undergo apoptosis; also, apoptosis related genes were expressed normally, which indicated that checkpoint apoptosis and physiological apoptosis in germ cells occurred normally in space flown C. elegans (Higashitani, Apoptosis, 2005).

    ^ back to top


    Related Web Sites
  • ESA Human Space Flight - ICE-First
  • Ask a C. Elegan Expert?

    • ^ back to top


    Publications

    Results Publications

      ^ back to top


      Related Publications
      • Zhao Y, Hohnsen R, Baillie D, Rose A. Worms in Space? A Model Biological Dosimeter. Gravitational and Space Biology. ;18(2):11-16. 2005

      ^ back to top


      Images

      imageThis image shows a magnified image of 2 adult worms and 1 juvenile worm crawling in the liquid media that was used for the ICE-First mission.
      + View Larger Image


      imageTypical morphology of apoptotic cells in the pachytene region of dissected gonads of C. elegans. Gonads were dissected from ced-1 mutants of spaceflight sample and DNA were stained with DAPI (blue fluorescent). Apoptotic cells without the fluorescent are indicated as arrows.
      + View Larger Image


      Information Provided and Updated by the ISS Program Scientist's Office
      › Back To Top