JXB Advance Access originally published online on July 16, 2003
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Journal of Experimental Botany, Vol. 54, No. 390, pp. 2157-2164,
September 1, 2003
© 2003 Oxford University Press
Ultrastructure of potato tubers formed in microgravity under controlled environmental conditions
Received 28 January 2003; Accepted 15 May 2003
,2
1 Department of Biological Sciences, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790, USA
2 Department of Botany, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Fax: +1 309 438 3722. E-mail: mecook1{at}ilstu.edu Dr Croxdale died unexpectedly during the final revision of this work. She is missed as a teacher, colleague, and friend.
Previous spaceflight reports attribute changes in plant ultrastructure to microgravity, but it was thought that the changes might result from growth in uncontrolled environments during spaceflight. To test this possibility, potato explants were examined (a leaf, axillary bud, and small stem segment) grown in the ASTROCULTURETM plant growth unit, which provided a controlled environment. During the 16 d flight of space shuttle Columbia (STS-73), the axillary bud of each explant developed into a mature tuber. Upon return to Earth, tuber slices were examined by transmission electron microscopy. Results showed that the cell ultrastructure of flight-grown tubers could not be distinguished from that of tuber cells grown in the same growth unit on the ground. No differences were observed in cellular features such as protein crystals, plastids with starch grains, mitochondria, rough ER, or plasmodesmata. Cell wall structure, including underlying microtubules, was typical of ground-grown plants. Because cell walls of tubers formed in space were not required to provide support against the force due to gravity, it was hypothesized that these walls might exhibit differences in wall components as compared with walls formed in Earth-grown tubers. Wall components were immunolocalized at the TEM level using monoclonal antibodies JIM 5 and JIM 7, which recognize epitopes of pectins, molecules thought to contribute to wall rigidity and cell adhesion. No difference in presence, abundance or distribution of these pectin epitopes was seen between space- and Earth-grown tubers. This evidence indicates that for the parameters studied, microgravity does not affect the cellular structure of plants grown under controlled environmental conditions.
Key words: Cell wall, microgravity, pectin, plant, Solanum, spaceflight, tuber, ultrastructure.