Bioinformatics approach to identify the impacts of microgravity on the development of bone and joint diseases

Background Experiencing long-term weightlessness during prolonged spaceflight in microgravity environments causes enormous changes in human physiology. Past space missions have revealed that low gravity in space is a serious threat to the development of several human diseases, especially bone and joint diseases (BJDs), which have been identified as the major obstacle to long-term space missions. Hence, before sending humans to Mars or long duration spaceflight, it is truly essential to investigate the association of microgravity (MG) on the development of BJDs, however, these are not clearly understood. Methods To investigate this problem, we developed a computational model to detect the changes in gene expression as potential impacts of MG exposure that may influence the progression of BJDs.