The Human Genome Project was launched in 1990, preceded by decades of breakthroughs in genetics. It eventually gave us a sequence of the human genome. Yet, while the physical rules behind the genome's organization remain an active area of research, many questions are still largely unanswered. Among these is the impact of an omnipresent force influencing life on Earth: gravity.

A new study, which appears in the journal Science Advances, addresses some of these weighty questions by using an innovative technique: creating a zero-gravity, or microgravity, environment to reveal gravity's impact on a human cell.

The method serves two purposes: isolating gravity's impact on the genome by removing it as a factor in experiments while, at the same time, showing how the genome functions in outer space, where gravity is nonexistent.

"On Earth, the role of gravity is intriguing—it is a constant mechanical stress on everything," explains Alexandra Zidovska, an associate professor in New York University's Department of Physics, who led the study.

"We wanted to know what gravity's role is in the genome's organization and function here on Earth. To uncover it, you have to remove gravity as a force, so we simulated zero gravity in our experiments."

"Beyond Earth, the question of lack of gravity is also compelling: How will the human genome be affected when in outer space?" she continues.

"We think our findings can be useful in better understanding how space travel affects us."

The human genome has a complex and compact hierarchical organization. It is a one-dimensional sequence encoded in 2 meters (6.6 feet) of DNA molecules packed in three dimensions inside a cell nucleus barely 10 micrometers in size—or about the width of a silk fiber.

Its structure is directly linked to its function, and deviations from it can lead to human diseases, such as cancer and developmental afflictions. Despite their significance, the physical principles governing the genome's organization are not well understood.

"We do not know if or how the presence of gravity affects this organization and if the absence of gravity would cause genomic aberrations," observes Zidovska...