Evaluating the lettuce metatranscriptome with MinION sequencing for future spaceflight food production applications.

ABSTRACT: Healthy plants are vital for successful, long-duration missions in space, as they provide the crew with life support, food production, and psychological benefits. The microorganisms that associate with plant tissues play a critical role in improving plant health and production. To that end, we developed a methodology to investigate the transcriptional activities of the microbiome of red romaine lettuce, a key salad crop that was grown under International Space Station (ISS)-like conditions. Microbial transcripts enriched from host-microbe total RNA were sequenced using the Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencing platform. Results show that this enrichment approach was highly reproducible and could be an effective approach for the on-site detection of microbial transcriptional activity. Our resul

SUBMITTER: Haveman NJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8211661 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature