Team:UNIK Copenhagen/Moss

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Why moss?

The aim of green lab is to genetically manipulate moss, specifically we transform the bryophyte species called 'Physcomitrella patens'. But why are we using moss for our experiments rather than the usual chassis organisms, like bacteria or yeast? There are three main reasons for this:

1. moss is a hardy plant. Moss can grow under many conditions, such as in the shade or on the surface of rocks. And since Mars is a tough place to live we need a tough organism for our plans to succeed.

2. Moss is a photosynthetic organism and thus produce oxygen, where yeast and (most) bacteria are heterotrophic organism do not. Being able to do photosynthesis and produce oxygen is very useful on a spacemission.

3. Moss transformation technologies is called "the yeast of plant biology" since it, like yeast, is able to do homologous recombination[1]. Moss has already been used extensivily as a model organism in plant biology and has been used as a bioreactor for many different compounds [2].

One of our petri dishes with moss

Moss growing facility

Using moss comes at a price. If you ever find yourself divided between two choices: watching moss grow or watching paint dry, opt for the latter. Experiments in moss is painstakingly slow compared to for example bacteria and yeast. This is due to the long grow time of moss. After transformation of moss protoplasts, it takes about eight weeks for the moss to form small clumps so experiments with moss need to be well planned and have lots of time avaliable.