Project Description
Since when have humans been attracted to the sky? Why does humankind focus its efforts and resources on studying outer space, when there are current unresolved issues on Earth?
Over 10'000 years ago, humans began to cultivate the Earth helped by the stars, predicting changes of seasons through the observation of the firmament. The transition, from a nomadic to a sedentary species that arose from agronomy, allowed the surge of civilizations around the globe. Civilizations that sparked due to emerging cultures, founders of cities full of science and technology. Following this, humankind's technological advancement has been continuously on the rise, reaching unprecedented speeds, making huge progress. During the second industrial revolution, the first airplane was created and sixty years later the first person walked the moon. Since then, humankind's desire to explore outer space has been continuously on the rise.
Sunset on the Pirineos, Spain. Credits: Pirineos la Nuit
The first trip to the moon inspired many generations and proved that thinking about distant horizons was beneficial to the Earth. Spatial exploration efforts are now looking towards Mars. It has recently become one of the main objectives as the scientific community intends to comprehend the red planet's past, present, and future. However, the planet's hostility has led this to be an arduous feat. Several rovers, landers, and orbiters have been launched to explore the red planet. These missions began in the sixties and have continued until the present. Missions like Curiosity in 2012, and most recently Perseverance, Curiosity's sibling, in 2021; allowed scientists to explore evidence of past habitable environments and microorganisms on Mars.
Perseverance rover on Mars. Credits: Nasa
When we started this project, the team wondered how far the last Navarra Biogalaxy team had gone in their different fields of research. After some investigation and talks with our PI's, we decided that we would continue, and try to improve, their UV radiation resistance plants' field of research. Moreover, the world is already working to ensure humankind's arrival on Mars and NASA scientists have considered 5 hazards that astronauts will face in long-lasting space trips, those being radiation, isolation, distance from Earth, gravity, and its hostile environments. This confirmed the path of our project and our team has felt the need to contribute in the pursuit of this milestone by proposing a project that could make plants thrive in places with a high UV radiation exposure.
By genetically modifying our plants, they would be capable of withstanding increased levels of radiation, facilitating their harvest and survival on Mars. Plants open a huge spectrum of resources in spatial exploration. So, aren't plants the perfect spatial partner?
Exploring Mars and solving the many complex tasks to inhabit the planet has a direct impact on what we know of our planet, as breakthroughs on Mars could turn out to be solutions to unresolved questions here. Furthermore, this project could be helpful on Earth, just like many projects which were developed for space but ended up having retribution on our planet. This would be further discussed in sustainable development impact.
In 2019, the second Navarra Biogalaxy team set its aims onto the red planet, they proposed different solutions to make plants able to survive Mars' hostile living conditions, such as gravity, lack of water, acid pH soils, and high levels of radiation. To extend their mission they created a biobrick consisting of the Arabidopsis PAP1 gene, which increases the ability to survive Mars' conditions.
Computer-generated view of Mars. Credits: NASA
This year, we wanted to give continuity to the last NBG project by investigating if genetically modified plants would be able to withstand Mars' UV radiation. Our main strategy is to boost the plant's natural photoprotective response by increasing its levels of photoprotective pigments. This way, we have laid out 3 different fields of research:
1. Verify if the increase of pigments protects plants from UV-B light:
a. Characterization of Arabidopsis plants overexpressing PAP1.
In this first field of research, we characterized the last team's biobrick which contained the Arabidopsis PAP1 gene as they didn't have time to prove its effectiveness. That is why our first objective was to characterize the plants modified with the Arabidopsis PAP1 gene to prove if they were more resistant to UV radiation.
Plasmid containing PAP1 gene
Arabidopsis PAP1 gene codes for a transcriptional factor, usually present in Arabidopsis thaliana plants, involved in pigment production. The introduction of this gene aims to overexpress PAP1 increasing phenylpropanoid and flavonoid pathways that stimulate the production of anthocyanins in vegetative tissues.
Representation of the increase of pigments on Arabidopsis due to PAP1
b. Characterization of Arabidopsis plants exposed to volatile compounds.
In this second field of research, we studied how volatile compounds interact with plants' metabolism and pigment production. It is known that volatile emissions from some microorganisms, not only considerably promote plants' growth, but also increase the accumulation of photoprotective pigments. For our experiment, we have used Alternaria alternata fungi as the producer of these compounds.
Method used to expose Arabidopsis thaliana to Volatile compounds
2. Using synthetic biology to engineer multi-resistant plants to UV
a. Producing Arabidopsis plants overexpressing PAP1 and UVR8 genes.
Continuing on with the direction of last year´s project, we have created a construction that makes possible the overexpression of two specific genes, Arabidopsis UVR8 and PAP1, that are naturally present in plants and participate in the defense against UV radiation. This way, we aimed to boost even more the plant's natural photoprotective response to UV radiation.
As we already had the construction containing PAP1, we created the one containing the UVR8 gene. This gene starts plants' physiological and morphological adaptive changes to UV. So, the main objective when introducing this gene is to initiate another biological pathway in addition to the one started by PAP1, increasing, even more, the level of photoprotective pigments.
Lastly, we joined the two constructions, and we also introduced the kanamycin antibiotic, one of the most commonly used markers for the selection of transformed Arabidopsis.
Plasmid containing UVR8 gene
Mars' radiation is a big problem, this way our project can be a step closer to the exploration of the red planet and future space missions. However, we are thinking about Mars, taking care of the Earth.
Would you like to join us on our interplanetary trip?
Sunset on Mars. Credits: NASA