Jaiswal Lab receives its first space biology funding from NASA to study plant transcriptomes.

Jaiswal Lab receives its first space biology funding from NASA to study plant transcriptomes.

Jaiswal Lab was recently awarded funding by the NASA to study alternative splicing of the RNA isoforms in the microgravity treated plant samples. The project will conduct analysis of existing GeneLab data sets on plants to compare transcriptomes sequenced from the ground control (1g) vs the space flight treated (microgravity stress) samples. The space flight transcriptome studies have facilitated analysis and tool development around profiling the differential gene expression (DGE), enrichment of pathways, and Gene Ontology-based functional annotation. To explore additional novel molecular events from the same studies, the project plans to analyze the alternative splicing forms of transcripts,  identify mutations (if any) gained due to cosmic radiation, and their consequences on the structure and function of the genes. About 45% of plants' genes undergo splicing, providing genome plasticity to respond to various stresses, including microgravity. The splicing adds an alternate open reading frame for the protein coding region and gain/loss of a portion of the transcript, resulting in altered structure and function of the final gene product. It may alter developmental patterns, metabolism, and nutrition traits essential for space travel adoption for food and crop plants. The project workflows can help analyze current and future data from non-plant eukaryotes like humans, mice, yeast, and other models. Jaiswal lab is an active member of the NASA GeneLab's Plant Analysis working group (PlantAWG).

Project personnel, Dr. Parul Gupta was also recently highlighted in the GeneLab member spotlight.

Ref:
https://taskbook.nasaprs.com/tbp/index.cfm?action=public_query_taskbook_content&TASKID=14984
https://genelab.nasa.gov/
https://genelab.nasa.gov/awg/members
https://genelab.nasa.gov/MemberSpotlight