As space agencies prepare for longer missions to the Moon and Mars, growing fresh food in space will be essential for supporting astronaut health and wellbeing. Lettuce, already grown aboard the International Space Station, is helping researchers understand how plants respond to the unique challenges of spaceflight.
In collaboration with NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and international research partners, researchers at The University of Western Australia are using advanced proteomics to investigate how lettuce adapts to the space environment at the molecular level.
The WA Proteomics Facility played a central role, using high-resolution mass spectrometry to analyse thousands of proteins in lettuce grown aboard the International Space Station and compare them with plants grown under matched conditions on Earth. The resulting dataset is expected to be one of the largest proteomic datasets generated for space-grown lettuce.
Initial analysis has identified thousands of proteins that differ between space- and Earth-grown plants, providing new insights into the biological pathways involved in plant growth and adaptation.
The findings could help inform the development of resilient crops and growing systems for future space missions, while also generating knowledge with potential applications for controlled-environment agriculture and sustainable food production on Earth.