Changes in plant growth processes under microgravity conditions simulated by a three-dimensional clinostat

Simulation of Microgravity by Magnetic Levitation and Random Positioning: Effect on Human A431 Cell Morphology

“…Thus it was demonstrated that both the reduction in gene expression and the increase in actin polymerization, as measured during sounding rocket experiments, were also observed under simulated microgravity using a fast rotating clinostat . Improvements of the principles of the fast rotating clinostat resulted in the development of the random positioning machine (RPM; Hoson et al 1992Hoson et al , 1997van Loon 2007). In the RPM, samples are mounted on a platform that randomly changes position in three dimensions by driving two independent frames that rotate independently in random directions and at random speeds.…”

Auxin Polar Transport and Automorphosis in Plants

“…Under a stimulusfree environment, plants show endogenously directed, spontaneous growth designated as "automorphosis" or "automorphogenesis" ("Eigenrichtung" by Pfeffer, 1881;cited in Pfeffer, 1904; see the review by Stanković et al, 1998). Although these terms and phenomena have been linked with "nastic" curvature that are morphologically determined and independent of any external stimulus (Pfeffer, 1904), more recently, these terms are also used to explain the establishment of intracellular polarity and determination of the growth direction under weightlessness (Volkmann et al, 1986) and to describe the morphogenesis of plants grown on a 3-D clinostat (Hoson et al, 1992(Hoson et al, , 1995(Hoson et al, , 1996. Spontaneous curvature of various plant organs observed on such conditions has been called "autotropism (autotropic reaction)" (Larsen, 1953) recognized as part of automorphosis.…”

“…1) (Shimazu et al, 2001;Miyamoto et al, 2005a, b). The occurrence of automorphosis on different plant species grown on a 3-D clinostat together with that in space has been summarized by Hoson et al (1992) and Hoson and Soga (2003). The direction of these spontaneous curvatures seems to be species dependent.…”

“…clinostat, which provides a way to randomize G-stimulation by providing 3-dimansional rotation, has been demonstrated to be a valuable device for simulating microgravity or weightlessness conditions, and intensively used for ground-based experiments (Hoson et al, 1992(Hoson et al, , 1996(Hoson et al, , 1997Kraft et al, 2000;Shimazu et al, 2001;Miyamoto et al, 2005b).…”

The behavioural-driven response of the Drosophila imago transcriptome to different types of modified gravity

“…The latter include mechanical systems such as clinostats, random positioning machines (RPM), drop towers, plus large radius centrifuges such as the Large Diameter Centrifuge (LDC) located at the ESA Research Centre in The Netherlands (ESTEC) [8][9][10][11][12][13] that allows minization of shear forces. An alternative ground-based approach is magnetic levitation, in which the diamagnetic force generated by a powerful magnet balances the force of gravity [14][15][16][17][18][19][20].…”