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Transgenic Arabidopsis Plants Engineered with Adh and RD29 Transgenes used to Analyze Gene Expression Induced by Abiotic Stresses. Kyle Hubbard1, Anna-Lisa Paul2 and Robert Ferl2 1Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, AL 2University of Florida, Gainesville, FL

   Space exploration often requires astronauts to be isolated for extended periods of time with limited room and resources. Plants can help to mitigate some of the problems of recycling air and water in a closed environment and can contribute to the provisions required on extended missions.  Plants grown on a spacecraft encounter stresses associated with closed environments as well as with spaceflight itself. Experiments were conducted with Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) plants to observe their response to stresses related to spaceflight. Transgenic Arabidopsis plants containing the RD29/GFP and Adh/GFP transgenes were used to evaluate the difference in expression through the reporter gene, as well as on a number of native genes associated with desiccation, change of ethylene concentrations, high salt levels, and hypoxic stresses. RD29/GFP and Adh/GFP Arabidopsis plants were exposed to either atmospheric desiccation by opening the lids of the Petri dishes, changing ethylene levels by adding fruit to an enclosed environment, or high salt simulated by flooding with a liquid solution then draining it from the Petri dish. The plants were exposed to hypoxia by either covering the roots with a solid agar blankets or by flooding vertically grown plants up to root/shoot junction with water. A simulated flight conducted in the Orbital Environment Simulator (OES) surveyed those stresses on the background of an environmental profile from a spaceflight mission. The results illustrated that the effects of abiotic stress on gene expression can be monitored through the reporter gene and through the use of quantitative RT-PCR to look at patterns of native gene expression.

This research was supported by the Spaceflight and Life Sciences Training Program (SLSTP).