Effect of Modeled Microgravity on UV-C-induced Interplant Communication of Arabidopsis thaliana

Publication date: Available online 6 September 2017 Source:Mutation Research/Fundamental and Molecular Mechanisms of Mutagenesis Author(s): Ting Wang, Wei Xu, Huasheng Li, Chenguang Deng, Hui Zhao, Yuejin Wu, Min Liu, Lijun Wu, Jinying Lu, Po Bian Controlled ecological life support systems (CELSS) will be an important feature of long-duration space missions of which higher plants are one of the indispensable components. Because of its pivotal role in enabling plants to cope with environmental stress, interplant communication might have important implications for the ecological stability of such CELSS. However, the manifestations of interplant communication in microgravity conditions have yet to be fully elucidated. To address this, a well-established Arabidopsis thaliana co-culture experimental system, in which UV-C-induced airborne interplant communication is evaluated by the alleviation of transcriptional gene silencing (TGS) in bystander plants, was placed in microgravity modeled by a two-dimensional rotating clinostat. Compared with plants under normal gravity, TGS alleviation in bystander plants was inhibited in microgravity. Moreover, TGS alleviation was also prevented when plants of the pgm-1 line, which are impaired in gravity sensing, were used in either the UV-C-irradiated or bystander group. In addition to the specific TGS-loci, interplant communication-shaped genome-wide DNA methylation in bystander plants was altered under microgravity conditions. The...
Source: Mutation Research Fundamental and Molecular Mechanisms of Mutagenesis - Category: Cytology Source Type: research