literature, the goal is to create a 1 m
3 system
capable of treating the wastewater and CO 2 of 4
crew members and providing an edible vegetable
yield up to 250 g of dry weight per day (Gale
et al. 1989; Landolt and Kandeler 1987). The
lG-LilyPond
TM system will need to overcome
the unique challenges of space missions including size and weight restrictions, controlled
growth and harvest in microgravity, water
delivery via capillary action, sterility, minimal
human maintenance, and rapid recovery from
failures (Escobar and Escobar 2017). This intimate reliance on duckweed in a closed-loop
system provides both a technical and a symbolic
example of how humans and duckweed complement each other, and how we can use the
smallest plants to solve the largest challenges.
Acknowledgments We’d like to thank Paul Skillicorn
from Agriquatics, Professor Zhao Hai from Chengdu
University, Darren Eng from Greenbelt Resources,
Eduardo Mercovich from MamaGrande, Ron Salpeter
from Hinoman, Tsipi and Ben Shoham from Green Onyx,
Maurits van de Ven from Plantible Foods, Christopher
Bush from CAIS, and Christine Escobar from Space Lab
Technologies for sharing data on their companies and
research and reviewing this document to ensure its
accuracy.
References
Alexandratos N, Bruinsma J (2012) World agriculture
towards 2030/2050: the 2012 revision. Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO), Rome
Alvarado S, Guédez M, Lué-Merú MP, Nelson G,
Alvaro A, Jesús AC, Gyula Z (2008) Arsenic removal
from waters by bioremediation with the aquatic plants
water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) and lesser
duckweed (Lemna minor). Bioresour Technol 99
(17):8436–8440
Appenroth KJ, Crawford DJ, Les DH (2015) After the
genome sequencing of duckweed—how to proceed
with research on the fastest growing angiosperm?
Plant Biol (Stuttg) 17:1–4. https://doi.org/10.1111/Plb.
12248
Appenroth K-J, Sree KS, Böhm V, Hammann S, Vetter W,
Leiterer M, Jahreis G (2017) Nutritional value of
duckweeds (Lemnaceae) as human food. Food Chem
217:266–273
Appenroth KJ, Sree KS, Bog M, Ecker J, Boehm V,
Lorkowski S, Sommer K, Vetter W, Tolzin-Banasch
K, Kirmse R (2018) Nutritional value of the duckweed
species of the genus Wolffia (Lemnaceae) as human
food. Frontiers in chemistry 6:483
Balaji P, Satheeshkumar PK, Venkataraman K, Vijayalakshmi MA (2016) Expression of anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha) single-chain variable
fragment (scFv) in Spirodela punctata plants transformed with Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Biotechnol
Appl Biochem 63(3):354–361. https://doi.org/10.
1002/bab.1373
Baldi BG, Maher BR, Slovin JP, Cohen JD (1991) Stable
Isotope Labeling, in Vivo, of d- and l-Tryptophan
Pools in Lemna gibba and the Low Incorporation of
Label into Indole-3-Acetic Acid. Plant Physiol 95
(4):1203–1208. https://doi.org/10.1104/pp.95.4.1203
Bhanthumnavin K, Mcgarry MG (1971) Wolffia arrhiza as
a possible source of inexpensive protein. Nature 232
(5311):495
Bluem V, Paris F (2003) Possible applications of aquatic
bioregenerative life support modules for food production in a Martian base. Adv Space Res 31(1):77–86
Boehm R, Kruse C, Voeste D, Barth S, Schnabl H (2001)
A transient transformation system for duckweed
(Wolffia columbiana) using Agrobacterium-mediated
gene transfer. J Appl Bot 75(3–4):107–111
Bog M, Baumbach H, Schween U, Hellwig F, Landolt E,
Appenroth KJ (2010) Genetic structure of the genus
Lemna L. (Lemnaceae) as revealed by amplified
fragment length polymorphism. Planta 232 (3):609–
619. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-010-1201-2
Bog M, Schneider P, Hellwig F, Sachse S, Kochieva EZ,
Martyrosian E, Landolt E, Appenroth KJ (2013)
Genetic characterization and barcoding of taxa in the
genus Wolffia Horkel ex Schleid. (Lemnaceae) as
revealed by two plastidic markers and amplified
fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). Planta 237
(1):1–13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-012-1777-9
Borisjuk N, Chu P, Gutierrez R, Zhang H, Acosta K,
Friesen N, Sree KS, Garcia C, Appenroth KJ, Lam E
(2015) Assessment, validation and deployment strategy of a two-barcode protocol for facile genotyping of
duckweed species. Plant Biol (Stuttg) 17:42–49.
https://doi.org/10.1111/Plb.12229
Cantó-Pastor A, Mollá-Morales A, Ernst E, Dahl W,
Zhai J, Yan Y, Meyers BC, Shanklin J, Martienssen R
(2015) Efficient transformation and artificial miRNA
gene silencing in Lemna minor. Plant Biol (Stuttg)
17:59–65. https://doi.org/10.1111/plb.12215
Cao HX, Wang W, Le HTT, Vu GTH (2016) The power
of CRISPR-Cas9-induced genome editing to speed up
plant breeding. Int J Genomics 2016:10. https://doi.
org/10.1155/2016/5078796
Cao HX, Fourounjian P, Wang W (2018) The importance
and potential of duckweeds as a model and crop plant
for biomass-based applications and beyond. In:
14
P. Fourounjian et al.
3 system
capable of treating the wastewater and CO 2 of 4
crew members and providing an edible vegetable
yield up to 250 g of dry weight per day (Gale
et al. 1989; Landolt and Kandeler 1987). The
lG-LilyPond
TM system will need to overcome
the unique challenges of space missions including size and weight restrictions, controlled
growth and harvest in microgravity, water
delivery via capillary action, sterility, minimal
human maintenance, and rapid recovery from
failures (Escobar and Escobar 2017). This intimate reliance on duckweed in a closed-loop
system provides both a technical and a symbolic
example of how humans and duckweed complement each other, and how we can use the
smallest plants to solve the largest challenges.
Acknowledgments We’d like to thank Paul Skillicorn
from Agriquatics, Professor Zhao Hai from Chengdu
University, Darren Eng from Greenbelt Resources,
Eduardo Mercovich from MamaGrande, Ron Salpeter
from Hinoman, Tsipi and Ben Shoham from Green Onyx,
Maurits van de Ven from Plantible Foods, Christopher
Bush from CAIS, and Christine Escobar from Space Lab
Technologies for sharing data on their companies and
research and reviewing this document to ensure its
accuracy.
References
Alexandratos N, Bruinsma J (2012) World agriculture
towards 2030/2050: the 2012 revision. Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO), Rome
Alvarado S, Guédez M, Lué-Merú MP, Nelson G,
Alvaro A, Jesús AC, Gyula Z (2008) Arsenic removal
from waters by bioremediation with the aquatic plants
water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) and lesser
duckweed (Lemna minor). Bioresour Technol 99
(17):8436–8440
Appenroth KJ, Crawford DJ, Les DH (2015) After the
genome sequencing of duckweed—how to proceed
with research on the fastest growing angiosperm?
Plant Biol (Stuttg) 17:1–4. https://doi.org/10.1111/Plb.
12248
Appenroth K-J, Sree KS, Böhm V, Hammann S, Vetter W,
Leiterer M, Jahreis G (2017) Nutritional value of
duckweeds (Lemnaceae) as human food. Food Chem
217:266–273
Appenroth KJ, Sree KS, Bog M, Ecker J, Boehm V,
Lorkowski S, Sommer K, Vetter W, Tolzin-Banasch
K, Kirmse R (2018) Nutritional value of the duckweed
species of the genus Wolffia (Lemnaceae) as human
food. Frontiers in chemistry 6:483
Balaji P, Satheeshkumar PK, Venkataraman K, Vijayalakshmi MA (2016) Expression of anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha) single-chain variable
fragment (scFv) in Spirodela punctata plants transformed with Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Biotechnol
Appl Biochem 63(3):354–361. https://doi.org/10.
1002/bab.1373
Baldi BG, Maher BR, Slovin JP, Cohen JD (1991) Stable
Isotope Labeling, in Vivo, of d- and l-Tryptophan
Pools in Lemna gibba and the Low Incorporation of
Label into Indole-3-Acetic Acid. Plant Physiol 95
(4):1203–1208. https://doi.org/10.1104/pp.95.4.1203
Bhanthumnavin K, Mcgarry MG (1971) Wolffia arrhiza as
a possible source of inexpensive protein. Nature 232
(5311):495
Bluem V, Paris F (2003) Possible applications of aquatic
bioregenerative life support modules for food production in a Martian base. Adv Space Res 31(1):77–86
Boehm R, Kruse C, Voeste D, Barth S, Schnabl H (2001)
A transient transformation system for duckweed
(Wolffia columbiana) using Agrobacterium-mediated
gene transfer. J Appl Bot 75(3–4):107–111
Bog M, Baumbach H, Schween U, Hellwig F, Landolt E,
Appenroth KJ (2010) Genetic structure of the genus
Lemna L. (Lemnaceae) as revealed by amplified
fragment length polymorphism. Planta 232 (3):609–
619. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-010-1201-2
Bog M, Schneider P, Hellwig F, Sachse S, Kochieva EZ,
Martyrosian E, Landolt E, Appenroth KJ (2013)
Genetic characterization and barcoding of taxa in the
genus Wolffia Horkel ex Schleid. (Lemnaceae) as
revealed by two plastidic markers and amplified
fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). Planta 237
(1):1–13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-012-1777-9
Borisjuk N, Chu P, Gutierrez R, Zhang H, Acosta K,
Friesen N, Sree KS, Garcia C, Appenroth KJ, Lam E
(2015) Assessment, validation and deployment strategy of a two-barcode protocol for facile genotyping of
duckweed species. Plant Biol (Stuttg) 17:42–49.
https://doi.org/10.1111/Plb.12229
Cantó-Pastor A, Mollá-Morales A, Ernst E, Dahl W,
Zhai J, Yan Y, Meyers BC, Shanklin J, Martienssen R
(2015) Efficient transformation and artificial miRNA
gene silencing in Lemna minor. Plant Biol (Stuttg)
17:59–65. https://doi.org/10.1111/plb.12215
Cao HX, Wang W, Le HTT, Vu GTH (2016) The power
of CRISPR-Cas9-induced genome editing to speed up
plant breeding. Int J Genomics 2016:10. https://doi.
org/10.1155/2016/5078796
Cao HX, Fourounjian P, Wang W (2018) The importance
and potential of duckweeds as a model and crop plant
for biomass-based applications and beyond. In:
14
P. Fourounjian et al.