Reconstructing the fastest chemical and electrical signalling responses to microgravity stress in plants.

Plants are particularly suited to study the response of a living organism to gravity as they are extremely sensitive to its changes. Gravity perception is a well-studied phenomenon, but the chain of events related to signal transduction and transmission still suers lack of information. Preliminary results obtained in previous parabolic ight campaigns (PFCs) by our Lab show that microgravity (<0.05g), but not hypergravity (1.8g), repeatedly induced immediate (less than 1.5 s) oxygen bursts when maize roots experienced loss of gravity forces.