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Abstract
The general purpose of this study was to confirm or rule out the possibility that microgravity and hypoxia were factors in the previously observed culture color change, from yellow to black/brown in differentiation of N1E-115 neuroblastoma cells cultured under simulated microgravity. In this study, N1E-115 cells were cultured and differentiated under microgravity on cytodex 3 beads in HARV bioreactor. Control cultures were differentiated under normal gravity in petri and tissue culture dishes. The culture vessels were operated in a CO2 incubator at different incubator oxygen levels of hypoxia (10%), normoxia (18%) and hyperoxia (26%). It was not possible to replicate color development by differentiating neuroblastoma cells under simulated microgravity suggesting that the phenomena previously observed in our laboratory and by other investigations was not solely dependent on microgravity, if at all. Metabolic differences (O2 consumption pattern) observed between cells differentiated under normal and microgravity were attributed more to O2 mass transport limitation into the HARV. Also, hopoxia was not proven to be a factor in transdifferentiation of N1E-115 neuroblastoma cells to melanocyte-like cells.