|
|
|
|
| Plant Growth Investigations in Microgravity 1 |
| In-Cabin |
| Prime: Cady Coleman | Principal Investigator: Dr. Robert Ferl, University of Florida, Gainesville |
| Backup: Steven Hawley | Project Scientist: Dr. William Knott, NASA/Kennedy Space Center |
| Overview |
|
The PGIM-1 experiment will use genetically engineered plants to monitor the space flight environment for stresses that affect plant growth and gene expression. Because plants cannot get up and move away from stressful situations, they have developed exquisite sensing mechanisms that monitor their environment and direct effective physiological responses to harmful conditions. One response is to change gene expression patterns, which allows plants to produce new suites of enzymes that allow them to accommodate an environmental perturbation. For the PGIM-1 payload, mouse-ear cress plants (arabidopsis thaliana) have been engineered with a reporter gene that provides visual clues to gene expression changes that will occur during space flight. When these engineered plants experience a stress, the reporter gene will be activated. The reporter gene's activity will be revealed by staining the plants. Thirty-six nearly mature plants will be housed in the plant growth facility in a middeck locker. The PGF will facilitate crew access to the plants on orbit as well as provide all of the growing conditions required by the plants. Light, temperature, and carbon dioxide levels can be controlled, and a full set of sensors will monitor all of the growth conditions in the PGF. During the flight, samples will be grown in a duplicate PGF on the ground for comparison with the space-grown plants. On the first day after launch and on the day before reentry, a crew member will open the PGF to harvest some of the plants and place them in fix tubes preloaded with reporter gene stain. The crew member will examine the plants for reporter gene activity. |
| Benefits |
| Investigators have learned from previous space flight experiments that plants do adapt to stress on orbit. Through the use of the reporter genes, PGIM-1 will seek to identify the sources of on-orbit stress and provide insight into methods of alleviating those stresses through better engineering of flight hardware or through genetic engineering of the plants. |
Editorial/Technical Comments: ShuttlePresskit
