Abstract
Environmental factors have long been known to be able to affect immune response from both animal studies and human studies. Over the past few decades, many efforts have been made to understand the interaction between various environmental factors, genetic factors, and the development of immune pathologies, such as allergic/autoimmune disease. An overview summary of the current knowledge about this complicated multicircuit control of the immune response is shown in Figure 2. The environmental factors and stressors related with mission to space include: microgravity, ecologically and environmentally closed systems, prolonged isolation, acute physical strain (such as during launch or landing), radiation, changes in sheer forces, as well as other variables that might have not been recognized yet. These environmental factors could each individually affect immune function, but they could also be interactive during spaceflight to alter immunity.
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Yi, B., Choukèr, A. (2016). The Immune System and Man-Environment Interaction: A General Understanding. In: The Immune System in Space: Are we prepared?. SpringerBriefs in Space Life Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41466-9_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41466-9_2
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