✍️Brachypodium distachyon Seedlings

✍️Brachypodium distachyon Seedlings Display Accession-Specific Morphological and Transcriptomic Responses to the Microgravity Environment of the International Space Station

🌐Link to the paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/13/3/626

Plants are important for space exploration, but few experiments have been done on monocot plants. This study investigated the growth and transcriptomic responses of Brachypodium distachyon seedlings to microgravity on the International Space Station, finding accession- and organ-specific responses.

The paper investigates the growth and transcriptomic responses of Brachypodium distachyon seedlings to microgravity on the International Space Station. The study finds accession- and organ-specific responses, indicating a need to directly evaluate candidate-crop responses to microgravity to better understand their specific adaptability to this novel environment and develop cultivation strategies allowing them to strive during spaceflight.

The practical implications of this paper are that it provides new insights into the growth and transcriptomic responses of Brachypodium distachyon seedlings to microgravity on the International Space Station. The study's findings suggest that there is a need to directly evaluate candidate-crop responses to microgravity to better understand their specific adaptability to this novel environment and develop cultivation strategies allowing them to strive during spaceflight. This information can be useful for future space exploration missions that involve growing crops in space for food, feed, and fiber.

The methods used in this paper include germinating and growing Brachypodium distachyon seedlings of the Bd21, Bd21-3, and Gaz8 accessions in a customized growth unit on the International Space Station, along with 1-g ground controls. At the end of a 4-day growth period, seedling organ's growth and morphologies were quantified, and root and shoot transcriptomic profiles were investigated using RNA-seq. The authors also used the PLACE database to identify possible conserved cis-acting elements in proximity to each differentially expressed gene (DEG). Additionally, the authors carried out a ground control at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) with a two-day delay to mimic the light, temperature, and CO2 conditions of the ISS experiment as well as the positions of the samples in VEGGIE. Finally, the authors performed GO enrichment analysis to identify enriched GO groups in all four categories of DEGs for all three accessions.

The data used in this paper includes the genomic sequence of the DEG's transcribed region along with 5 kb of upstream and downstream sequences, seedling organ's growth and morphologies, and root and shoot transcriptomic profiles investigated using RNA-seq. The authors also used the PLACE database to identify possible conserved cis-acting elements in proximity to each DEG. Additionally, the authors carried out a ground control at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) with a two-day delay to mimic the light, temperature, and CO2 conditions of the ISS experiment as well as the positions of the samples in VEGGIE. Finally, the authors performed GO enrichment analysis to identify enriched GO groups in all four categories of DEGs for all three accessions.

The results of the paper indicate that Brachypodium distachyon seedlings exposed to the microgravity environment of the International Space Station (ISS) display accession- and organ-specific responses that involve oxidative stress response, wall remodeling, photosynthesis inhibition, expression regulation, ribosome biogenesis, and post-translational modifications. The three Brachypodium accessions displayed dramatically different transcriptomic responses to microgravity relative to ground controls, with the largest numbers of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) found in Gaz8, followed by Bd21 and Bd21-3. Only 47 and six DEGs were shared between accessions for shoots and roots, respectively, including DEGs encoding wall-associated proteins and photosynthesis-related DEGs. Furthermore, DEGs associated with the "Oxidative Stress Response" GO group were up-regulated in the shoots and down-regulated in the roots of Bd21 and Gaz8, indicating that Brachypodium roots and shoots deploy distinct biological strategies to adapt to the microgravity environment. A comparative analysis of the Brachypodium oxidative-stress response DEGs with the Arabidopsis ROS wheel suggests a connection between retrograde signaling, light response, and decreased expression of photosynthesis-related genes in microgravity-exposed shoots. In Gaz8, DEGs were also found to preferentially associate with the "Plant Hormonal Signaling" and "MAP Kinase Signaling" KEGG pathways.

Overall, these results suggest a need to directly evaluate candidate-crop responses to microgravity to better understand their specific adaptability to this novel environment and develop cultivation strategies allowing them to strive during spaceflight.

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