NYMC Faculty Publications
The Effects of Space Radiation on the Transcriptome of Heart Right Ventricle Tissue
Author Type(s)
Faculty
DOI
10.1038/s41526-025-00506-8
Journal Title
NPJ Microgravity
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-1-2025
Department
Cell Biology and Anatomy
Disciplines
Medicine and Health Sciences
Abstract
Deep space represents a challenging environment for human exploration and can be accompanied by harmful health-related risks. We aimed to assess the effect of simplified galactic cosmic ray simulated (simGCRsim) and gamma (γ) ionizing radiation (IR) on transcriptome changes in right ventricular (RV) tissue after a single low dose (0.5 Gy, 500 MeV/nucleon) full body exposure in C57BL/6J male and female mice. In females, no differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and only 2 upregulated genes in males exposed to γ-IR were revealed. In contrast, exposure to simGCRsim-IR resulted in 4 DEGs in females and 371 DEGs in males, suggesting longer-lasting and sex-biased DEGs after simGCRsim-IR. Overrepresentation analysis of DEGs in simGCRsim-IR males revealed significant enrichment in pathways related to muscle contraction, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, oxytocin release, the regulation of cytoskeleton, and genes associated with Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, and Parkinson’s diseases. Our results suggested the RV transcriptome exhibits distinct responses after exposure based on both the IR and sex.
Recommended Citation
Zakharyan, R., Hakobyan, S., Brojakowska, A., Bisserier, M., Zhang, S., Khlgatian, M., Rai, A., Davitavyan, S., Stepanyan, A., Sirunyan, T., Khachatryan, G., Sahoo, S., Garikipati, V., Arakelyan, A., & Goukassian, D. (2025). The Effects of Space Radiation on the Transcriptome of Heart Right Ventricle Tissue. NPJ Microgravity, 11 (1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41526-025-00506-8
