Figure 3.

Spaceflight modifies actin but has limited effect on the ECM in the heart. (a) A total of 155 significantly modulated cytoskeleton-related transcripts were selected from the original transcript data received from LC Sciences. Of this subset, 86 were upregulated and 73 were downregulated. (b) This dataset was uploaded to DAVID Gene Ontology for subset analyses. The most significant KEGG analysis demonstrated there was regulation of the actin cytoskeleton in spaceflight with a downregulation of the products involved in focal adhesion, actin stabilization, actin polymerization, and actomyosin assembly (p = 8.8 x 10^-15, Benjaminini = 1.6 x 10^-12); (c) ECM components were analyzed for any changes induced by spaceflight, namely collagens, integrins, laminins, and elastin. Of these components, only two transcripts were significantly altered out of 50; (d) 37 significantly altered ECM-related transcripts were uploaded to DAVID GO for targeted analyses. KEGG analyses of ECM-binding products demonstrated limited interaction. FRAS1, collagen, and agrin were significantly downregulated and integrin beta 1 was significantly upregulated. Figures (b) and (d) were created using BioRender.com (accessed on 15 December 2022).