Investigating plant responses to microgravity and adaptations in gravisensitive environments

Abstract

Plants are crucial because they give us food and oxygen. With the idea of living on other planets and taking long trips in space, we need to understand and explore the way how plants can survive in these strange places. However, while the gravity response on earth’s surface has been extensively studied in plants, in space, where the gravity is very weak, things get confusing. One of the intriguing and essential subjects for space life is understanding how plants can sustain themselves in microgravity conditions. To investigate this, various clinostat devices and the CRISPR/Cas9 technique are crucial tools for exploring the functioning of PIN-formed protein and related signal transduction pathways. In this review, we aim to provide researchers with a brief overview of the mechanisms of CRISPR/Cas9, which can be immensely helpful when using this method alongside clinostat machines. Our primary goal in this review is to address the missing gaps in existing literatures, focusing on how plants perceive gravity and experimental approaches applicable for studying their responses to microgravity, both on earth and in space.