The Arabidopsis spaceflight transcriptome: a comparison of whole plants to discrete root hypocotyl and shoot responses to the orbital environment

Arabidopsis thaliana was evaluated for its response to the spaceflight environment in three replicated experiments on the International Space Station. Two approaches were used; GFP reporter genes were used to collect gene expression data in real time within unique GFP imaging hardware and plants were harvested on orbit to RNAlater for subsequent analyses of gene expression with using Affymetrix and SAGE transcriptome analyses. Three tissue types were examined (leaves hypocotyls and roots) and compared to analyses conducted with whole plants. Transcriptome analyses with whole plants suggested that the spaceflight environment had little impact on the transcriptome of arabidopsis however closer examination of selected tissues revealed that there are a number of tissue-specific responses that arabidopsis employs to respond to this novel environment

拟南芥（Arabidopsis thaliana）在三个在国际空间站上进行的重复实验中，被评估其对航天飞行环境的响应。采用了两种方法：利用绿色荧光蛋白（GFP）报告基因，在独特的GFP成像硬件中实时收集基因表达数据；同时，在轨道上收获植物并使用RNAlater进行保存，以备后续进行Affymetrix和SAGE转录组分析。研究考察了三种组织类型（叶片、下胚轴和根）并与整株植物的实验结果进行了比较。整株植物的转录组分析表明，航天飞行环境对拟南芥的转录组影响微乎其微；然而，对选定组织的进一步审视揭示，拟南芥在此新颖环境中展现了多种组织特异性的响应。