Microgravity effects on leaf morphology, cell structure, carbon metabolism and mRNA expression of dwarf wheat

The PESTO experiment was launched on April 8, 2002 onboard STS-110 (Atlantis) and was returned on June 19, 2002 onboard STS-111 (Endeavor), a total of 73 days in space. The ground control was conducted on a 14-day delay, and was harvested on July 3, 2002. During this period there were a total of 7 harvests of PESTO wheat and priming of 6 wheat root modules on orbit. A total of 18 plants were fixed on orbit for morphological and structural analysis, 4 plants were fixed for RNA and molecular genetic analysis and greater than 150 plants were frozen for biochemical analysis. A total of 3018 images of wheat chambers were collected from the BPS cameras during flight, and 3,640 images were obtained from the ground controls. A total of 65 digital images of the wheat harvest were collected during flight, with 75 being collected from ground controls. In addition, crew members recorded approximately 50 images and over 3 hrs of video of flight operations. Over 2 gigabytes of environmental data were obtained from the flight and ground control units. A ground control experiment was conducted in the BPS ground control chamber in the Orbiter Environment Simulator (OES) at the Kennedy Space Center Launch Site Support Facility in Hangar L. The ground control was delayed by 14-days from the real- time flight operations in order to duplicate the flight operations as closely as possible in a 1 g environment. At launch, two chambers were dedicated to the PESTO study, which consisted of three growth cycles using Apogee wheat. The third chamber was dedicated to the TVT study for the first growth cycle and used Apogee wheat. For the subsequent two wheat growth cycles, the third chamber was used for the PESTO study. For the first growth cycle in all Plant Growth Chambers, seeds were germinated pre-launch. In PESTO, the ages of the plants were staggered at launch so that comparisons of physiological and biochemical properties between mature plants, which were well developed and photosynthetically competent, and young plants could be studied. In-flight, plants were harvested at a specific age, and the initiation of the next cycle of growth was staggered between the chambers

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  "026:00"
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  "026:000"
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  "Biological and Physical Sciences"
]