Bulk RNA sequencing and single nuclei transcriptomics and epigenomics of brain tissue from mice flown on the RRRM-2 mission

In the Rodent Research Reference Mission (RRRM-2), forty female C57BL/6NTac mice were flown on the International Space Station. To assess differences in outcomes due to age, twenty 12 week-old and twenty 29 week-old mice were flown, respectively. To directly assess spaceflight effects, half of the young and old mice (10 old, 10 young) were sacrificed on-orbit after 55-58 days (ISS Terminal, ISS-T), while the other half (10 old, 10 young) were returned live to Earth after 32 days and allowed to recover for 24 days (Live Animal Return, LAR) before sacrifice. ISS-T and LAR mice were the same age at sacrifice. Both the ISS-T and LAR animals had independent ground controls (10 mice per group housed in flight hardware in matched environmental conditions), basal controls (10 mice per group sacrificed 2 days before launch), and vivarium controls (10 mice per group housed within standard vivarium habitats). Thus RRRM-2 included a total of 160 mice. This study includes bulk RNA sequencing and single nuclei transcriptomics and epigenomics from left cerebral hemispheres from 4 young ISS-T spaceflight animals, 5 old ISS-T spaceflight animals, 5 young ISS-T ground control animals, and 4 young ISS-T ground control animals.