Nanotechnological Approach for Improving Plant Stress Tolerance Sustainable Crops for Advanced Life Support in Mars Exploration

People who will colonize Mars will face several problems including an obvious deficit of oxygen and water. Plants are essential components of human space exploration. They can provide oxygen, remove carbon dioxide, purify water, supply fresh food, pharmaceuticals and are also beneficial for psychological health. All abiotic stresses (cold, drought, salt) reduce plant growth and yield. Abiotic stress is one of the major limiting factors in Space Agriculture, thus preventing crop plants from realizing their full genetic potential. For example, plants established for Mars Agriculture should be able to grow in conditions of significant water deficit. This project will take distinct approaches for addressing this problem and develop tools suitable for Mars Agriculture. The long-term goal of the proposed project is to develop new approaches to increase abiotic stress tolerance in crops. We will achieve this goal by utilizing the unique properties of nanomaterials in planta. First, we will investigate the positive effects of nanomaterials on plant growth, especially under stress conditions, and elucidate underlying mechanisms. Next, we will determine whether DNA-loaded nanoparticles could serve as carriers to deliver genes into plant cells leading to genetic transformation and establishment of stress tolerant plants. These two distinct non-transgenic and transgenic approaches could serve as useful tools for the sustainable growth of plants in stressful conditions of Mars. We will use carbon nanotubes and magnetic nanoparticles as carriers for delivery of DNA encoding genes associated with enhancement of stress tolerance in planta, and carbon-based nanomaterials (multi-walled carbon nanotubes and graphene) for ameliorating symptoms of drought stress in two economically important crops: rice and soybeans. In addition, we will test the hypothesis that enhancement of abiotic stress tolerance in plants could occur upon exposure to nanomaterials by studying activation of stress signaling at the molecular level We will also compare the efficiency of non-transgenic and transgenic approaches for the enhancement of plant stress tolerance.

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