Evaluating the lettuce metatranscriptome with MinION sequencing for future spaceflight food production applications

• Published in: NPJ microgravity Vol. 7; no. 1; p. 22
• Main Authors: Haveman, Natasha J., Khodadad, Christina L. M., Dixit, Anirudha R., Louyakis, Artemis S., Massa, Gioia D., Venkateswaran, Kasthuri, Foster, Jamie S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 17.06.2021; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/326; 631/449; Applied Microbiology; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biotechnology; Classical and Continuum Physics; Crops; Food; Food plants; Immunology; Investigations; Leaves; Lettuce; Life Sciences; Microbiomes; Microorganisms; Pathogens; Physiology; Space exploration; Space Exploration and Astronautics; Space flight; Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics; Space stations; Transcription
• ISSN: 2373-8065; 2373-8065
• DOI: 10.1038/s41526-021-00151-x

Healthy plants are vital for successful, long-duration missions in space, as they provide the crew with life support, food production, and psychological benefits. The microorganisms that associate with plant tissues play a critical role in improving plant health and production. To that end, we developed a methodology to investigate the transcriptional activities of the microbiome of red romaine lettuce, a key salad crop that was grown under International Space Station (ISS)-like conditions. Microbial transcripts enriched from host–microbe total RNA were sequenced using the Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencing platform. Results show that this enrichment approach was highly reproducible and could be an effective approach for the on-site detection of microbial transcriptional activity. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of using metatranscriptomics of enriched microbial RNA as a potential method for on-site monitoring of the transcriptional activity of crop microbiomes, thereby helping to facilitate and maintain plant health for on-orbit space food production.