Plant Biology Colloquium | Plants and Gravity: ‘omics from Earth to ISS, March 24

Dr. Sarah Wyatt

The Environmental & Plant Biology Colloquium Series presents Dr. Sarah Wyatt on “Plants and Gravity: ‘omics from Earth to ISS” on Friday, March 24, at 11:50 a.m. in Porter Hall 104.

Wyatt is a Professor in the Environmental & Plant Biology Department at Ohio University.

Abstract: Gravity is a fundamental stimulus directing plant growth and development, from the germination of the seed to positioning of flowers for pollination or seeds for dispersal. Although on Earth reorientation of plants with respect to the gravity vector is often used to study the effects of gravity, the optimal control for gravity responses would be a lack of gravity or the microgravity of spaceflight. Thus, a proteomics approach was undertaken to examine the protein profile of seedlings flown to the International Space Station (ISS) as compared to those on Earth. The discovery proteomics approach focused on the total proteome and post-translational modifications which may govern protein location and function. Approximately 800-1,000 Arabidopsis seeds were plated onto 60 mm petri dishes, the dishes integrated into petri dish fixation units (PDFUs) loaded with RNALater and flown using the Biological Research in a Canister (BRIC) hardware. A total of 22 plates were flown in four BRICs. An additional four BRICs, to serve as ground controls, were kept at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) under environmental conditions as on ISS. The experiment, designated BRIC-20, was flown to the ISS in January of 2015. Seedlings were grown for approximately three days, RNAlater was injected onto the plates, and seedlings incubated for 12 hours, then frozen until return to Earth.  Once returned, RNA and both membrane and soluble proteins were extracted from the samples. The relative abundance of proteins in and post-translational modifications of the spaceflight samples vs. ground controls will help identify proteins that may be crucial for response to gravity. Partially funded by NASA grant # NNX13AM48G to SEW and DRL and NASA GeneLab supplement to SEW.