ENEA has created a nano tomato enriched with antioxidant molecules, useful for the diet of astronauts on long-duration missions and able to withstand the radiation of the space environment. The activities were conducted under the HORTSPACE and BIOxTREME projects, funded by the Italian Space Agency, and the results have been published in the scientific journals, Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences and Frontiers in Plant Sciences. "In the roadmap of human exploration of deep space in which the Moon will be a key stopover to Mars, astronauts will have to self-support themselves with the available resources," explains Silvia Massa of the ENEA Biotechnology Laboratory. "These plants," she adds, "will provide fresh, healthy food without the need for supplies from Earth and will be the main source of high-value molecules, such as antioxidants and biopharmaceuticals, to support life in future space outposts. Indeed, in this scenario, the confined environment, different gravity conditions from Earth, and ionizing radiation will affect not only human health, but also plant productivity and food quality, potentially generating oxidative stress and DNA damage. Since 2014 as part of the BIOxTREME project, ENEA has been studying how food plants can grow adequately in an extraterrestrial environment, going so far as to develop a real model. Later, as part of the HORTSPACE project, researchers evaluated productivity and quality requirements in space as well, studying how radiation affects the physiology of these plants, subjected to the simulation of a space environment. Compared to non-engineered plants, the tomato developed by ENEA - dubbed 'San Marziano' by the researchers - has a more compact size and higher anthocyanin content, with negligible variations in growth and photosynthesis.
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