Environment resilient plants for space exploration

The establishment of vegetation habitats, for on-site production of biomaterials and sustainable food production at ground space stations, is one of the biggest challenges for space exploration. High level of radiation, low temperature, low light intensity, low atmospheric pressure, and low oxygen in the atmosphere as well as high level of toxic compounds in soil are some of the most difficult hurdles to overcome in order to establish vegetation in space. Martian regolith contains high level of toxic compounds that are dangerous for both plants and human, including perchlorates and heavy metals. In order to address these environmental challenges the genetic mechanisms for stress resistance was introduced from environment resilient organisms into plants. The main objective of the project was to generate plants engineered with the perchlorate degradation pathway from the bacteria Dechloromonas aromatica and the melanin biosynthesis pathway from the fungus Alternaria alternata, with the aim to produce plant lines that are able to withstand high concentrations of both perchlorate and heavy metal at levels similar to what is found in Martian regolith. In addition, expression of fungal melanin in these plants should also provide higher tolerance to ionizing radiation as it is a major component of fungal protection against extreme stress including high energy radiation. Generating plants with high tolerance to perchlorate, ionizing radiation and heavy metals would be of great importance for Mars missions. Such plants would be also valuable for bioremediation of soils and water contaminated with perchlorate and heavy metals on Earth.