Plant Secondary Metabolism in Altered Gravity
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Plans by the space program to use plants for food supply and environmental regeneration have led to an examination of how
plants grow in microgravity. Because secondary metabolic compounds are so important in determining the nutritional and flavor
characteristics of plants—as well as making plants more resistant to biotic and abiotic stresses—their responses to altered
gravity are now being studied. These experiments are technically challenging because temperature, humidity, atmospheric composition,
light, and water status must be maintained around the plant while simultaneously altering the g
-load, either in the free-fall of orbital spacecraft or on a centrifuge rotor. In general, plants have shown increased accumulation
of small secondary metabolites in microgravity (<10−3
g
), while these have decreased in hypergravity (>1-g
). Gravity-related changes in the plant environment as well as mechanical loading effects account for these responses.