Cell interactions in microgravity: cytotoxic effects of natural killer cells in vitro

To study cell-to-cell interactions in microgravity we examined the functional activity of natural killer cells on board of the ISS. NK cells are the effector cells with direct cytotoxic activity to oncogenic, virus-infected cells and cells with modified differentiation. Ground-based experiments have shown that the examination of target cell lysis after incubation with NK cells is a simple and informative model for studying the influence of microgravity. NK cytotoxicity was measured as the value of non-degradeted labeled myeloblasts (K-562) after 24 hrs exposure with human lymphocytes in suspension. A special device was developed for space flight experiments. Human cultured lymphocytes and labeled K-562 cells were loaded into special syringes and delivered to the Russian segment of the ISS. Cosmonauts prepared co-cultured suspensions during the first day of microgravity, exposed them at 37 degrees C for 24 hrs and then separated H3-labeled cells on special filters. The results of ISS-8 mission showed that human NK cells in vitro remain lysis activity toward target cells in microgravity. The basal level of NK cytotoxicity was low and we did not found significant differences between "control" and "flight" values. Interferon production during the interaction between immune and target cells (ratio 10:1) in microgravity did not differ compared with ground-based control experiments. Ground exposure of the same lymphocyte samples with K-562 cells to 24 hrs clinorotation also did not lead to significant differences. These experiments paved the way for understanding the cell interaction mechanisms in space flight and the obtained results suggest that microgravity does not disrupt the interaction of NK cells with tumor cells.