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The Amyloid Aggregation Study on Board the International Space Station, an Update

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Abstract

“Amyloid Aggregation” is an Italian Space Agency (ASI)-granted project designed to investigate if and how beta amyloid peptides aggregation is affected by microgravity, in the light of a possible professional risk in astronauts on long-lasting space missions. Researchers of the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Piemonte Liguria e Valle d'Aosta (IZSPLV) and the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Ist.Sup.San) conceived the project while the Aerospace Logistics Technology Engineering Company (ALTEC) developed the payload. ARGOTEC/Telespazio (UTISS Team) supported safety evaluation, payload manifesting and qualification processes for a safe and efficient delivery, utilization, and integration on board the International Space Station (ISS), and finally recovery of the experimental hardware once returned to Earth. The hardware consisted of 48 special jars containing 6 different time period experimental groups and 2 control groups. In August 2019, during the “BEYOND” mission on board the ISS, astronaut Luca Parmitano activated individual jars according to a defined protocol. At the end of each Incubation Time Periods (ITPs), the samples were transferred in the cold stowage system to stop the aggregation reaction until the analysis after re-entry. Forty-eight identical samples have been prepared and activated in November 2019 on Earth. ALTEC developed jars and packaging for space transportation, qualified and delivered the flight hardware, according to requirements. We here provide an update on the optimization of analytical techniques described in the project specifically intended to warrant an up-to-date, robust and reliable examination of samples that we plan to accomplish in the next months within the proposed timeframe of the project.

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Abbreviations

Aβ:

Amyloid β

AD:

Alzheimer's disease

AFM:

Atomic force microscopy

ALTEC:

Aerospace Logistic Technology Engineering Company

ASI:

Italian Space Agency

AT:

Ambient temperature

AFM:

Atomic force microscopy

PBS:

Phosphate-buffered saline

CNS:

Central Nervous System

CS:

Cold stowage

DLS:

Dynamic Light Scattering

DMSO:

Dimethyl sulfoxide

ESA:

European Space Agency

HW:

Hardware

ITP:

Incubation time periods

ISS:

International Space Station

Ist.Sup.San.:

Istituto Superiore di Sanità

IZSPLV:

Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Piemonte, Liguria e Valle d'Aosta

KSC:

Kennedy Space Center

MS:

Mass spectrometry

NASA:

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

PD:

Payload developer

PI:

Principal investigator

RT:

Room temperature

SpX-18:

SpaceX-18

UTISS Team:

ARGOTEC/Telespazio

WB:

Western blotting

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Acknowledgements

The investigation was made possible thanks to an agreement between ASI and ESA for national utilization of ESA resources in the frame of the mission “BEYOND”. This project is granted by Italian Space Agency contract ASI no. 2018-4-r.0. ASI is coordinating the program and providing the access to the ISS and to the onboard resources, thanks to the Memorandum of Understanding between ASI and NASA for the design, development, operation, and utilization of three mini pressurized logistic modules for the ISS. ASI avails of the industrial support from Telespazio and Argotec for the new payload integration, operations and logistic process implemented with NASA. ALTEC has performed the design, integration, verification and test of the jars and the special container.

Funding

Italian Space Agency contract ASI n. 2018–4-r.0

Author information

Author notes

  1. Elena Berrone, Franco Cardone, Cristiano Corona and Marco Sbriccoli contributed equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Piemonte, Liguria E Valle d’Aosta, Turin, Italy

    Elena Berrone, Cristiano Corona, Alessandra Favole & Cristina Casalone

  2. Istituto Superiore Di Sanità, Rome, Italy

    Franco Cardone, Marco Sbriccoli, Flavia Porreca, Serena Camerini, Marialuisa Casella, Marco Crescenzi & Maurizio Pocchiari

  3. Altec S.P.A., Turin, Italy

    Stefano Sirigu, Alessandro Crisafi & Michele Trichilo

  4. Argotec, Turin, Italy

    Chiara Piacenza & Gianni Truscelli

  5. Telespazio, Naples, Italy

    Dario Castagnolo

  6. Italian Space Agency (ASI), Rome, Italy

    Claudia Pacelli, Marino Crisconio, Giovanni Valentini, Gabriele Mascetti & Sara Piccirillo

  7. ISC-CNR, Rome, Italy

    Simona Sennato

  8. “Sapienza” University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Francesca A. Scaramuzzo

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  1. Elena Berrone
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Correspondence to Cristina Casalone.

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Berrone, E., Cardone, F., Corona, C. et al. The Amyloid Aggregation Study on Board the International Space Station, an Update. Aerotec. Missili Spaz. 99, 141–148 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42496-020-00049-z

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