Project description:Background: The metalloid Arsenic is potentially toxic, genotoxic, and carcinogenic to humans. The metalloid poisining in drinking-water is a widespread problem affecting a large population globally. The toxicant is often found to exceed the recomnded level. the risk of repated exposure is direct as well as transplacental. the primary resion of exposure is the contamination of potable water from the geological sources in many region of the globe. The underlying mechanism of As toxicity is still unknown.
Project description:Microgravity effect on C. elegans gene expression was analysed by whole genome microarray. The worms were cultivated under microgravity for 8days in the Japanese Module of the International Space Station.
Project description:Microgravity effect on C. elegans gene expression was analysed by whole genome microarray. The worms were cultivated under microgravity for 4 days in the Japanese Module of the International Space Station.
2016-08-31 | GSE71770 | GEO
Project description:Microbial isolates recovered from the International Space Station
Project description: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 growth, health, and production. To that end, it is necessary to develop methodologies that investigate the metabolic activities of the plant’s microbiome in orbit to enable rapid responses regarding the care of plants in space. In this study, we developed a protocol to characterize the endophytic and epiphytic microbial metatranscriptome 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 showed that this enrichment approach was highly reproducible and effective for rapid on-site detection of microbial transcriptional activity. Taxonomic analysis based on 16S and 18S rRNA transcripts identified that the top five most abundant phyla in the lettuce microbiome were Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Ascomycota. The metatranscriptomic analysis identified the expression of genes involved in many metabolic pathways, including carbohydrate metabolism, energy metabolism, and signal transduction. Network analyses of the expression data show that, within the signal transduction pathway of the fungal community, the Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase signaling pathway was tightly regulated across all samples and could be a potential driver for fungal proliferation. Our results demonstrated the feasibility of using MinION-based metatranscriptomics of enriched microbial RNA as a method for rapid, on-site monitoring of the transcriptional activity of crop microbiomes, thereby helping to facilitate and maintain plant health for on-orbit space food production.