NASA GeneLab Platform Utilized for Biological Response to Space Radiation in Animal Models

Ionizing radiation from galactic cosmic rays (GCR) is one of the major risk factors that will impact the health of astronauts on extended missions outside the protective effects of the Earth's magnetic field. The NASA GeneLab project has detailed information on radiation exposure using animal models with curated dosimetry information for spaceflight experiments. NASA's growing GeneLab omics database now hosts almost 250 experimental studies on spaceflight exposure and analogous ground-based experiments from microbes, plants, animal models, and human/animal-derived cell cultures. These data are available as an open-access resource for single- and multi-omic analyses on microarray, RNA-sequencing, bisulfite-sequencing, proteomic, metabolomic, and metagenomic datasets We analyzed 30 GeneLab omics datasets associated with both ground-based and spaceflight radiation studies that included in vivo and in vitro approaches. A range of ions from protons to iron particles with doses from 0.1 to 1.0 Gy for ground studies, as well as samples flown in low Earth orbit (LEO) with total doses of 1.0 mGy to 30 mGy, were utilized. From this analysis, we were able to identify distinct biological signatures associating specific ions with specific biological responses due to radiation exposure in space. For example, we discovered changes in mitochondrial function, ribosomal assembly, and immune pathways as a function of dose. In addition, we utilized a novel analysis technique to determine the distribution of mapping errors within the RNA-sequencing results from liver samples by examining whether mice exposure to spaceflight resulted in detectable changes compared to ground controls. This novel analysis discovered a cumulative exposure of 9.20 mGy on mice flown in LEO detected significant increases in A > G and C > T base substitutions, as well as changes in CAC, CGT, GTA, or GTG error rates. We will provide a summary of how the GeneLab's rich database of omics experiments with animal models can be used to generate novel hypotheses to better understand human health risks from GCR exposures.