Seattle — Researchers at the University of California, Irvine are studying how cartilage tissue develops in microgravity as part of a National Science Foundation- and NASA-supported project aboard the International Space Station.
The research, led by Wendy Brown and Kyriacos Athanasiou of UC Irvine’s DELTAi Lab, uses single-cell RNA sequencing to examine cartilage tissue engineered in orbit. Parse Biosciences announced the study, which uses the company’s Evercode Cell Fixation technology to preserve biological samples aboard the space station before they are returned to Earth for analysis.
The project could contribute to the development of treatments for cartilage injuries, which can cause chronic pain and disability. Researchers are seeking methods to repair or regenerate damaged cartilage without requiring tissue from a donor site.
Gravity can make it difficult to produce cartilage tissue in a laboratory, while microgravity may allow engineered tissue to more closely resemble natural cartilage.
The UC Irvine team begins by rejuvenating highly expanded chondrocytes to restore cartilage-related gene expression and the cells’ ability to produce cartilage. The cells then self-assemble into cartilage-like tissue without a scaffold and mature under mechanical tension to increase their strength.
The process takes place aboard the space station in flight-certified equipment developed by BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Researchers collect samples at several stages, ranging from the first hours of cell differentiation to nearly 30 days of cartilage culture.
The samples are preserved using Evercode Cell Fixation and returned to Earth for single-cell RNA sequencing.
“The ability to study rejuvenation of our minipig cells in microgravity at the single cell level requires us to be able to effectively preserve the cells with a long storage timeframe. We also need a species-agnostic platform that has full functionality with our specialized animal model (the Yucatan minipig),” said Rachel Nordberg, who is leading the study examining the rejuvenation of the cells.
“Parse offers the perfect solution to give us the flexibility we need to study minipig cells, collect samples at multiple timepoints, and handle the unpredictability of spaceflight operations,” Brown said.
“What the UC Irvine team is doing is remarkable. Engineering cartilage in microgravity could fundamentally change how we think about tissue repair, and the fact that they are running this level of single cell work from samples preserved in orbit is a real testament to the rigor of their science. We are honored that Evercode is a small part of it,” said Charlie Roco, Ph.D., Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Parse Biosciences.
