Osteocytes transcriptome is altered during spaceflight

Bone loss is one of the major health problems for astronauts during long-term spaceflight and for patients during prolonged bed rest or paralysis. Growing evidence suggests that osteocytes, the most abundant cells in the mineralized bone matrix, play a key role in sensing mechanical forces applied to the skeleton and in transducing them into subcellular biochemical signals to modulate bone homeostasis. However, the precise molecular mechanisms underlying both mechanosensation and mechanotransduction in osteocytes under the real microgravity (µG) condition are poorly understood. To unravel the mechanisms by which osteocyte, sense and responds to mechanical unloading, we exposed murine osteocytic cell line, Ocy454, seeded on a highly porous polystyrene 3D scaffold, to 2, 4, or 6 days of µG on board the International Space Station (ISS) and compared their gene expression with cells at 1G on Earth. Bioinformatics analysis of cells exposed to µG revealed several pathways differentially regulated upon exposure to microgravity.