Develop a novel instrumental technique for monitoring adenine metabolites in bone metabolism, energy homeostasis and neuromodulation.

With an active space station and the potential for commercial space flight just around the corner, a better understanding of space and its interactions with the human body will be important. For Terilyn Stephen, a chemistry student at UAF, her research into chemical compounds may help scientists limit the negative impacts such travel has and will have on the human body. (click on photo for more of the story)

For the past two years, Stephen’s has been developing a new way of detecting a compound in biological tissue called adenosine. Adenosine plays a vital role within human health and impacts numerous biological functions, including bone maintenance, brain and immune function and energy metabolism.

Adenosine is a unique compound due to its ability to have opposing effects within the same tissue type and, in some cases, within an individual cell. In bone tissue, for example, adenosine contributes to the regulation of both bone formation and bone tissue breakdown. These two opposing processes  are critical to maintaining strong and healthy bones. 

Stephen has spent much of her graduate career studying biochemistry and neuroscience. She first became interested in studying adenosine when her research adviser, Tom Green, offered her an opportunity to work in his research lab over a summer. “At first, I was unfamiliar with adenosine, analytical chemistry and the biological relevance of the project,” said Stephen, “but after spending 3 months on the project, I was hooked.”

During space missions, NASA astronauts can lose between to 1-2% of their overall bone density and up to 1% of their total lean muscle per month. Stephen's research is helping develop a better and more sensitive tool to help scientists analyze adenosine’s role within human health. This analysis may, in turn, lead to new strategies in preserving said health during disease, illness and space travel. 

The most important thing Stephen learned during her project was patience, she said. Research is about making new discoveries and it's easy to forget that such discoveries are born from failed experiments. While Stephen admitted that these setbacks can be a source of frustration and discouragement, overcoming them builds a scientist's knowledge base and skill set, as well as their character. 

“This project has taught me patience and the ability to stay encouraged even when things are not meeting your expectations,” she said, “or turning out the way you planned.”

Adenine metabolites (adenosine, Ado, adenosine 5’-monophosphate, AMP, adenosine 5’-diphosphate, ADP, and adenosine 5’-triphosphate, ATP) play key roles in a number of physiological processes including bone and energy metabolism, immune function and neuromodulation, all which are of a great significance to the health of NASA crewmembers during space travel. Current available technologies to monitor these molecules in biological systems often fail to simultaneously detect all adenine metabolites with high sensitivity and resolution. Here, we plan to develop a robust and highly sensitive capillary electrophoresis-laser induced fluorescence detection (CE-LIF) method that is able to separate and detect Ado, AMP, ADP and ATP in small volumes of biological samples. We have successfully applied the proposed method to the analysis of Ado in brain tissue and plan to continue our efforts in expanding the method for the analysis of Ado and other adenine metabolites in various biological samples. We expect the proposed project will have a positive impact on NASA’s mission because it will provide an innovative technology that can advance current studies designed to reduce the negative impacts of space travel.