Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 4, 2026
Rapid Quantification of Mitogen-induced Blastogenesis in T Lymphocytes for Identifying Immunomodulatory Drugs
Published on: December 27, 2016
Microgravity inhibits resting T cell immunity in an exposure time-dependent manner
Haiying Luo1, Chongzhen Wang1, Meifu Feng1
1State Key Laboratory of Biomembrane and Membrane Biotechnology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Background:
Decline immune function is well documented after spaceflights. Microgravity is one of the key factors directly suppressing the function of immune system. Though T cell immune response was inhibited by microgravity, it is not clearly whether activation would be inhibited after a pre-exposure of microgravity on T lymphocytes at the resting state.
Methods:
We herein investigated the response ability of resting CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells experiencing pre-exposure of modeled microgravity (MMg) for 0, 8, 16 and 24 hrs to concanavalin A (ConA) stimulation. The phenotypes and subsets of immune cells were determined by flow cytometry.
Results:
Both CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells with an MMg pre-exposure exhibited decreased expressions of activation-markers including CD25, CD69 and CD71, inflammatory cytokine secretion and cell proliferation in response to ConA compared with T cells with 1g controls in an MMg exposure time- dependent manner. Moreover, short term MMg treatment caused more severe decreased proliferation in CD4⁺ T cells than in CD8⁺ T cells.
Conclusions:
MMg can directly impact on resting T cell subsets. CD4⁺ T cells were more sensitive to the microgravity inhibition than CD8⁺ T cells in respect of cell proliferation. These results offered new insights for the MMg-caused T cell functional defects.
