Detection of renal tissue and urinary tract proteins in the human urine after space flight

PLoS One. 2013 Aug 13;8(8):e71652. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0071652. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

The urine protein composition samples of ten Russian cosmonauts (male, aged of 35 up to 51) performed long flight missions and varied from 169 up to 199 days on the International Space Station (ISS) were analyzed. As a control group, urine samples of six back-up cosmonauts were analyzed. We used proteomic techniques to obtain data and contemporary bioinformatics approaches to perform the analysis. From the total number of identified proteins (238) in our data set, 129 were associated with a known tissue origin. Preflight samples contained 92 tissue-specific proteins, samples obtained on Day 1 after landing had 90 such proteins, while Day 7 samples offered 95 tissue-specific proteins. Analysis showed that consistently present proteins in urine (under physiological conditions and after space flight) are cubilin, epidermal growth factor, kallikrein-1, kininogen-1, megalin, osteopontin, vitamin K-dependent protein Z, uromodulin. Variably present proteins consists of: Na(+)/K(+) ATPase subunit gamma, β-defensin-1, dipeptidyl peptidase 4, maltasa-glucoamilasa, cadherin-like protein, neutral endopeptidase and vascular cell adhesion protein 1. And only three renal proteins were related to the space flight factors. They were not found in the pre-flight samples and in the back-up cosmonaut urine, but were found in the urine samples after space flight: AFAM (afamin), AMPE (aminopeptidase A) and AQP2 (aquaporin-2). This data related with physiological readaptation of water-salt balance. The proteomic analysis of urine samples in different phases of space missions with bioinformation approach to protein identification provides new data relative to biomechemical mechanism of kidney functioning after space flight.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Albuminuria / etiology
  • Humans
  • Kidney / metabolism*
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Peptides / urine
  • Proteinuria / etiology*
  • Proteome*
  • Proteomics / methods
  • Space Flight*
  • Urinary Tract / metabolism*

Substances

  • Peptides
  • Proteome

Grants and funding

This research has been supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project 10-04-13306-RT_ofi), a program of the Russian Ministry of Science and Education (project 14.740.11.0755 and 16.740.11.0369). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.