Immune changes during short-duration missions

• Published in: Journal of leukocyte biology Vol. 54; no. 3; pp. 202 - 208
• Main Author: Taylor, G. R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Legacy CDMS Society for Leukocyte Biology 01.09.1993
• Subjects: Aerospace Medicine; Humans; hypoergy; hypo‐ gravity; immune suppression; Immune System - physiology; Space Flight; spaceflight; Time Factors; USA; Human; Immune System/physiology; Nasa Experiment Number Ap002; Nasa Discipline Number 18-10; Salyut Project; Space Flight; Soyuz Project; Flight Experiment; Sts Shuttle Project; Nasa Center Jsc; Apollo-Soyuz Project; Long Duration; Apollo Project; Time Factors; Skylab Project; Nasa Program Space Physiology And Countermeasures; Nasa Discipline Regulatory Physiology; Nasa Experiment Number Ar-002; NASA Experiment Number AR-002; NASA Program Space Physiology and Countermeasures; NASA Center JSC; NASA Discipline Number 18-10; NASA Discipline Regulatory Physiology; NASA Experiment Number AP002
• ISSN: 0741-5400; 1938-3673
• DOI: 10.1002/jlb.54.3.202

Spaceflight materially influences the immune mechanism of humans and animals. Effects resulting from missions of less than 1 month are examined. Effects from longer missions are discussed in the companion paper by Konstantinova et al. Most immunology studies have involved analyses of subjects and samples from subjects obtained after flight, with the data being compared with similar data obtained before flight. These studies have demonstrated that short-duration missions can result in a postflight depression in blast cell transformation, major changes in cytokine function, and alterations in the relative numbers of immune cell populations. In addition to these post- vs. preflight studies, some data have been produced in flight. However, these in vitro analyses have been less than satisfactory because of differences between in-flight and ground-control conditions. Recently, both the U.S. and Russian space programs have started collecting in-flight, in vivo, cell-mediated immunity data. These studies have confirmed that the human cell-mediated immune system is blunted during spaceflight.