SMOOTH MUSCLE TISSUE – A POTENTIAL TARGET OF TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCHES IN SPACE BIOMEDICINE

This is an overview of the current knowledge of the structural and functional organization of the smooth muscle tissue (SMT) presenting equally fundamental and applied interest for space biomedicine. SMT is a structural component of the visceral organs involved in adaptive reactions or pathological developments. According to the evidence, cell populations of visceral SMT contain smooth myocites differing in histophysiological properties. Many investigators reason that the SMT morphological and embriological origin is organ-specific and can be an area of translational researches, including space biomedicine. In spite of the multisided analysis of animal and humans tissues exposed to the spaceflight factors, no effort has been made to study SMT in space microgravity or ground-based modeling experiments. However, space gastroenterology knows facts about morphological transformations in the digestive organs in the spaceflight environment. Clearly, SMT as a structural component of the gastrointestinal tract may contribute directly in a number of organ-specific changes during orbital missions. SMT studies will unveil mechanisms of adaptive cell, and molecular changes with stromal mediation due to microgravity, and reveal targets for enhancing health control in space missions.