Gravity’s Effects on Plants to Be Studied : Science: NASA-funded project is about to begin at North Carolina State University. Findings may help develop plants that can travel in space.

If long-distance space travel is to become a reality, people aren’t the only ones who will have to adapt to life without gravity. Plants, which could provide food and oxygen, are sure to be sent on voyages taking years to complete.

Scientists at North Carolina State University are about to begin research that could ultimately design plants suitable for space travel.

The university will receive $5 million from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration over five years to study gravitational biology. The money will be used to establish a NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training on the N.C. State campus.

The center’s mission will be twofold--to research how plants perceive and respond to gravity, and to educate high school teachers about gravitational biology so they can pass the information on to students.

The research aspect of the project will focus on how calcium affects the ability of plants to respond to gravity.

“The focus is on calcium because it seems as though it may be the most important individual chemical in plant responses to the environment,” said Eric Davies, head of N.C. State’s botany department and director of the new NASA center.

Davies explained that plants work hard to keep calcium levels low within cells, but also store large supplies of calcium in the cell walls. Those stored supplies can be released suddenly, leading to dramatic changes in the cell’s calcium content within just a few seconds.

“Perhaps most impressive is our ability to measure changes in calcium in specific parts of a living cell as it changes in real time. We’ll be able to say which cells and where within those cells calcium plays a role in responding to gravity,” Davies said. “We now have the best facility in the country to be doing this kind of work.”

To view changes within the cells, researchers will use florescent micropsy, an advanced microscopic technology that allows scientists to focus a specific wavelength of light on the subject to reveal only the substances they wish to see.

As part of those experiments, researchers will mount a special microscope on a wall so they can view changes as they rotate the growing plants. For instance, researchers will be able to determine how plants respond to gravity by turning the plants sideways and watching to see what happens within cells as the plants try to send roots downward.

The researchers also will genetically alter plants to change their ability to manage calcium. Those changes will allow the scientists to see exactly how the signaling process works. Once they have succeeded in genetically changing plants to alter their calcium levels, the scientists will see how those changes affect other vital functions such as electrical signaling, hormone transportation and carbohydrate metabolism.

“It should help ultimately develop plants which are more suitable for space travel and help us find out what characteristics are totally unsuitable,” Davies said.

Davies believes the experiments, set to begin in January, will be the first of their kind in plants. Although all of the planned experiments are ground-based, Davies hopes that they will lead to future studies aboard the space shuttle.

And, he says, the project is unique because it involves a dozen professors with widely varied areas of expertise working together.

Although it could be years before the effects of their experiments are felt, project designers hope the outreach aspect of the program will have an immediate impact on the community.

The NASA grant will allow the university to sponsor eight postdoctoral researchers, 11 graduate students and up to 11 undergraduates over a five-year period. The money also will allow 15 to 20 teachers to take classes at the university each summer. The high school science teachers will learn about the latest in gravitational biology and use that information in their classrooms.

Working with N.C. State researchers will be experts from Wake Forest University, the City University of New York and the Kennedy Space Center.

Two other universities will receive similar grants to set up specialized research centers. They are Rice University in Houston and Rutgers University, the state university of New Jersey.