Transcriptional profiling of the right gastrocnemius muscle from mice flown on the RR-1 mission

Due to crew time constraint, only two (out of ten) mice were dissected immediately after euthanasia to recover spleen and liver tissues on the ISS. The remaining eight animals were euthanized, then intact carcasses were placed in a pre-chilled cold stowage container and stored in the MELFI.

There were respective cohorts of age-matched basal animals which were euthanized one day after launch as a baseline control (Basal control group) as well as age-matched ground control animals kept in an ISS Environmental Simulator at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on a 4-day delay to mimic spaceflight conditions (Ground control group). In addition, the NASA Validation study also had a cohort of age-matched vivarium control animals that were housed in the vivarium cages and followed the same experimental timeline and process as the spaceflight animals (Vivarium control group).