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WHAT: Plant Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus WHERE: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, and International Space Station, 250 miles above Earth WHO: BioServe Space Technologies, University of Colorado, Boulder, with funding from NASA and private industry WHY: To study how microgravity affects plant development. The next mission – scheduled to begin in July 2002 and […]

WHAT: Plant Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus

WHERE: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, and International Space Station, 250 miles above Earth

WHO: BioServe Space Technologies, University of Colorado, Boulder, with funding from NASA and private industry

WHY: To study how microgravity affects plant development. The next mission - scheduled to begin in July 2002 and last 52 days - will focus on the synthesis of lignin, the structural compound that helps terrestrial plants and trees withstand gravity and wind. Scientists want to better understand how this primary metabolite is made, from the genetic instructions that initiate its production to the external factors that influence it. Pharmaceutical companies want to know whether plants would synthesize more secondary metabolites (such as alkaloids, which are used in many anticancer drugs) if they spent less energy producing lignin.

HOW: About two dozen thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) plants are germinated in orbit inside the PGBA - a sealed container measuring roughly 8,360 cubic inches. Subsystems monitor and maintain light, temperature, humidity, and CO2 levels. The plants are harvested at various times during a 21-day growth cycle and frozen to stabilize their genomic states. The process is then repeated with a second set of plants. Back on Earth, BioServe scientists extract the frozen samples' messenger RNA and analyze it. Using a gene array chip, they determine when specific genetic messages were sent during development and how those instructions were expressed. By comparing the results to equivalent data collected from a control group cultivated at NASA centers, the scientists can study the effect of microgravity.

MORE: www.colorado.edu/engineering/BioServe/agriculture.html