Fig. 1: Telomere length homeostasis is unperturbed in space-grown Arabidopsis.

Telomere length analysis of shoots (a, c, e) and roots (b, d, f) from 12-day-old A. thaliana seedlings grown aboard the ISS. a, b (left) Results from TRF analysis conducted with shoots (a) or roots (b). Biological replicates for space-flown shoots or roots (n = 3) and corresponding ground controls (grown under similar conditions at Kennedy Space Center) (n = 3). Each lane represents a single biological replicate. (right) Mean telomere length determined from TRF data (on left) analyzed by WALTER. Data displayed as violin plots. In shoots, mean telomere length for ground controls was ~3.1 kb and ~2.9 kb for spaceflight (p = 0.5032 by unpaired two-tailed Welch’s t-test). In roots, mean telomere length for ground controls was ~2.78 kb and ~2.75 kb for spaceflight (p = 0.8684 by unpaired two-tailed Welch’s t-test). c, d PETRA results for space-flown shoots (c) and space-flown roots (d) with their corresponding ground controls. Biological replicates for shoots n = 5 for both flight and ground controls, and for roots n = 6 for both flight and ground controls. Results are shown for the left arm of chromosome 1 (1L), the right arm of chromosome 2 (2R), the right arm of chromosome 4 (4R), and the right arm of chromosome 5 (5R). PETRA products for several space-flown samples are more abundant relative to the ground controls. The reason is unknown. e (left) PETRA quantification of the mean telomere length for all the chromosome arms analyzed from each biological shoot sample determined using WALTER (n = 8). Data for three shoot biological replicates shown in Supplemental Fig. 2c were included. Results represent mean with SD. (right) Combined mean telomere length for each chromosome arm measured by PETRA from shoots analyzed by WALTER with relative telomere length changes in base pairs (ΔTL) indicated (n = 8). Data for three shoot biological replicates shown in Supplemental Fig. 2c were included. Data shown as violin plots. P calculated by two-way RM ANOVA. f (left) PETRA quantification of the mean telomere length for all the chromosome arms analyzed from each biological root sample determined by WALTER (n = 6; from data in Fig. 1d). Results represent mean with SD. (right) Combined mean telomere length for each chromosome arm measured by PETRA from roots analyzed by WALTER with relative telomere length changes in base pairs (ΔTL). (n = 6; from data in Fig. 1d). Data shown as violin plots with p calculated by two-way RM ANOVA. Ground control data in gray and spaceflight in pink. Source data provided as Source Data File.