Transcriptomic response of bioengineered human cartilage to parabolic flight microgravity is sex-dependent

Spaceflight and simulated spaceflight microgravity induced osteoarthritic-like alterations at the transcriptomic and proteomic levels in the articular and meniscal cartilages of rodents. But little is known about the effect of spaceflight or simulated spaceflight microgravity on the transcriptome of tissue-engineered cartilage developed from human cells. In this study, we investigate the effect of simulated spaceflight microgravity facilitated by parabolic flights on tissue-engineered cartilage developed from chondrogenically differentiated human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells obtained from age-matched female and male donors. Our bulk transcriptome data via RNA sequencing demonstrated that the engineered tissues responded to parabolic microgravity in a sex-dependent manner.