title: [The effects of space flights on the lipid composition of blood, adrenal glands and liver in rats].
abstract: Numerous postflight biochemical and morphological investigations of rats evidenced some shifts in lipid metabolism due to weightlessness and/or gravitation stresses. In the "Spacelab-2" experiment with rats, lipid spectra of blood serum (plasma), liver and adrenal glands were explored with the thin layer silicagel chromatography with the aim of evaluating stress effects of space flight on lipid metabolism. For the first time tissues were gathered and analyzed on day 13 in microgravity. Lipid composition of the liver remained unchanged after 13 days of flight. Those were cholesterol ethers of blood serum that were significantly increased while no changes had occurred in the relative quantities of each class of lipids in their totality. The adrenal glands considerably reduced concentrations of total lipids, free cholesterols, triglycerides, and free fatty acids. Within four hours into landing, free fatty acids were found to increase in blood plasma whereas the relative content of triglycerides decreased. Hepatic lipids remained unchanged and the adrenal ones did not differ from the control. On day 14 of recovery, the total content of blood plasma lipids was significantly increased on the score of triglycerides, and free and esterified cholesterols. The liver displayed decreases in all classes of fats; however, similar changes were in the control rats, too. The lipid composition of the adrenal did not differ from that of control. According to the total balance of lipids in rats' blood serum and liver, no signs of acute or chronic stress had been developed by the concluding stage of the 140-day space mission. Yet, one cannot exclude an acute stress early in mission that might have been the cause for the shifts in lipid metabolism in adrenals resulting in their reversible delipoidization.
authors.forename: I A
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Popova
authors.forename: I V
authors.initials: IV
authors.lastname: Zabolotskaia
authors.forename: L M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Kurkina
mesh_terms: D000311:Adrenal Glands / Q000737:chemistry*; D000818:Animals; D046508:Culture Techniques; D006112:Gravitation; D008055:Lipids / Q000097:blood*; D008099:Liver / Q000737:chemistry*; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D013026:Space Flight; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D008055:Lipids