Adaptation to real 1/6 g moon gravity contributes to plant development and expeditious acclimation to super-freezing

Adaptation to real 1/6 g moon gravity contributes to plant development and expeditious acclimation to super-freezing | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Adaptation to real 1/6 g moon gravity contributes to plant development and expeditious acclimation to super-freezing Gengxin Xie, Yuanxun Zhang, Jing Yang, Dengyun Yu, Maozhi Ren, and 2 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-278675/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Understanding how terrestrial life responds to planet microgravity is essential for humankind’s ambitious solar system exploration. Using the life-regeneration ecosystem carried by Chang’e 4 probe landed on the Moon, for the first time in human history, we followed the life trajectory of an earth cotton seed germination, development, and final fate after long term exposure to super cold temperature. We compared this life trajectory on the moon to that on earth in a controlled environment with matching parameters, except that the gravity is different. We found that 1/6 g Moon gravity causes no significant interruption to seed germination speed, but slows down seedling growth and contributes to an apparently shortened hypocotyl and thinner cotyledon. Most surprisingly, Moon seedling showed expeditious acclimation to super-freezing under 1/6 g microgravity, remaining erect and green after exposure to long term super cold temperature during the lunar night. We propose plausible mechanisms for the cold resilience based on moon-microgravity induced cellular and molecular responses. These unique findings will extend our understanding of plant adaptive responses to space suboptimal environments. Planetary Science Terrestrial Ecology Plant Physiology and Morphology terrestrial life planet microgravity cotton seed germination and development cold temperature cold resilience Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Full Text Due to technical limitations, full-text HTML conversion of this manuscript could not be completed. However, the latest manuscript can be downloaded and accessed as a PDF. Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-278675","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":14611662,"identity":"edbe9527-7598-4148-aae0-4409626fab54","order_by":0,"name":"Gengxin Xie","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAABAklEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDACZijNxsB8gCEBzCBeC1sCkVoQgMeAOHUGx5kPv/i4ozaxT7rnm8TDHQz2fNLNDxh+VGzDqUWymS3NcuaZ48ZsMme3SSSeYUhskzlmwNhz5jZOLfzMPGbGvG3H5NgkcjcbJLYxJLBJJBgwM7bh1sLGzP/N+G/bMR42iZzHIC32bBLpH/BqAdrC/JixrQZoSw7jA6AWxjaJHPy2AP1ixtjbdsCYTSLN8EHiGYlEoJaCg/j8YnD+8OMPP9vqEufPSH5w8OcOG3v5GekbH/yowK0F5B0JBobDECZjgwSYPoBPPRAwf2BgqINpIaB2FIyCUTAKRiQAAH5yUAwfOc/gAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"","institution":"Chongqing University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Gengxin","middleName":"","lastName":"Xie","suffix":""},{"id":14611663,"identity":"f1709c13-ebe4-4e5e-bf61-b7e6617881f1","order_by":1,"name":"Yuanxun Zhang","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Chongqing University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Yuanxun","middleName":"","lastName":"Zhang","suffix":""},{"id":14611664,"identity":"978c5502-f0f1-4bba-a59c-f437ae992582","order_by":2,"name":"Jing Yang","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Electronic Science and Technology of China","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jing","middleName":"","lastName":"Yang","suffix":""},{"id":14611665,"identity":"3d8aa00d-aaea-4294-afcc-0adf1da4e734","order_by":3,"name":"Dengyun Yu","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Science and Technology Commission, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Dengyun","middleName":"","lastName":"Yu","suffix":""},{"id":14611666,"identity":"2575683e-72ce-44c1-9bc5-f9ddcdb11525","order_by":4,"name":"Maozhi Ren","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Chongqing University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Maozhi","middleName":"","lastName":"Ren","suffix":""},{"id":14611667,"identity":"a06cceab-f8b7-46aa-a573-c9e1965b5786","order_by":5,"name":"Dan Qiu","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Chongqing University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Dan","middleName":"","lastName":"Qiu","suffix":""},{"id":14611668,"identity":"c308ecea-9c39-4712-8bd4-4837ae4aad8a","order_by":6,"name":"Zhihua Zhong","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Collaborative innovation center for intelligent new energy vehicles, Tongji University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Zhihua","middleName":"","lastName":"Zhong","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2021-02-26 06:29:09","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-278675/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-278675/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":6861299,"identity":"bcc3f0ac-286a-4fd7-9104-cf3471e1e530","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2021-03-11 21:27:22","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":1010099,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Ecosystem equipment and workflow of the moon biological experiment carried out by Chang’e 4 lander.\nA: ecosystem equipment exterior. It is a sealed, atmospheric pressure and climate well-controlled container which can form a mini biosphere under the moon environment. B-C: Internal layout of the container. A biological warehouse is fixed on the bottom and covered by water soluble PVA fiber cotton. Two radiators and multilayer heat insulation are equipped to accurately control the container internal temperature. A pipe can load water from storage tank to the biological warehouse. A light pipe on the container top surface is to import natural light for plant photosynthesis. And two cameras above the warehouse are designed for realtime recording. D: Biological warehouse appearence. It contains rapeseeds, cotton, potatoes and arabidopsis seeds, as well as yeast and fruit-fly eggs. E: biological experiment procedures performing on the Moon. The ecosystem power was switched on exactly 12.87 hours after the craft landing. Half an hour later, water pipe successfully loaded water to the biological warehouse by temporally adjusting container temperature to 54℃ to melting the water pipe sealing paraffin plug. The ecosystem kept working for several days we defined as “the first lunar day after landing”. And the power was switched off at 20:03 Jan 12, 2019, means the Moon entered “the first lunar night after landing”, which lasted for about 18 earth-days, and was dark and frozen. Finally, the power re-switched on at 01:33 Jan 31, 2009, and it was the beginning of “the second lunar day after landing”.","description":"","filename":"1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-278675/v1/5a1071a0b853603fa098d7e7.png"},{"id":6861297,"identity":"4aa6fb4d-4e21-42a8-ba00-bed668e93124","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2021-03-11 21:27:21","extension":"png","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":1862946,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Cotton seed germination and growth diversity between lunar and earth parallel control.\nA: Left panel, temperature was well controlled in both moon and earth containers; Right panel, the atmospheric pressure and oxygen content dynamics of the earth container\nduring the whole experiment. The double slash indicates the period of “the first lunar night after landing”, which lasted for about 18 earth-days. B: Seedling growth of the lunar during the first lunar day after landing. Upper panel, pictures realtime captured by cameras; Middle panel, magnified images of the local part in red boxes of the upper panel. Read arrowhead points to the seedling; Bottom panel, 3-D simulation images of lunar seeding during the first lunar day. C: Seedling growth of the earth during the first lunar day after landing. Upper panel, pictures realtime captured by cameras; Bottom panel, magnified images of the local part in yellow boxes of the upper panel. Yellow arrowhead points to the seedling.","description":"","filename":"2.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-278675/v1/354b653762e6e7f666357c13.png"},{"id":6861298,"identity":"2d643630-7823-415b-a799-ccd6c1ea290b","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2021-03-11 21:27:21","extension":"png","order_by":3,"title":"Figure 3","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":1412569,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Lunar seedling seems developing expeditious acclimation of super-freezing under real moon 1/6 g microgravity.\nA: The variation between images of the second lunar day and last frame of the first lunar day, for both seedlings on the lunar and the earth. Read arrowhead points to the seedling. After being kept in frozen condition for about 18 days and rewarmed to room temperature, the moon seedling still be green and erect for several days, while the earth control had already died and shew a fragmental appearance and black-yellow color. B: A hypothetic model of fast acclimation of moon seedling to super-freezing stress under microgravity environment.","description":"","filename":"3.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-278675/v1/be2805c957d270eaf8b33739.png"},{"id":13603172,"identity":"9611d81d-263a-46fa-bb60-42d3a213ce2d","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2021-09-17 05:54:24","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1416756,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Adaptationtorealmoongravitycontributestoplantdevelopmentandexpeditious.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-278675/v1_covered.pdf"},{"id":6861868,"identity":"eefb5c0d-aca9-44d0-bcb3-349235aa6721","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2021-03-11 21:30:26","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1240565,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Adaptationtorealmoongravitycontributestoplantdevelopmentandexpeditious.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-278675/v1_stamped.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Adaptation to real 1/6 g moon gravity contributes to plant development and expeditious acclimation to super-freezing","fulltext":[{"header":"Full Text","content":"Due to technical limitations, full-text HTML conversion of this manuscript could not be completed. 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Using the life-regeneration ecosystem carried by Chang’e 4 probe landed on the Moon, for the first time in human history, we followed the life trajectory of an earth cotton seed germination, development, and final fate after long term exposure to super cold temperature. We compared this life trajectory on the moon to that on earth in a controlled environment with matching parameters, except that the gravity is different. We found that 1/6 g Moon gravity causes no significant interruption to seed germination speed, but slows down seedling growth and contributes to an apparently shortened hypocotyl and thinner cotyledon. Most surprisingly, Moon seedling showed expeditious acclimation to super-freezing under 1/6 g microgravity, remaining erect and green after exposure to long term super cold temperature during the lunar night. We propose plausible mechanisms for the cold resilience based on moon-microgravity induced cellular and molecular responses. These unique findings will extend our understanding of plant adaptive responses to space suboptimal environments. 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