Plants grown in Apollo lunar regolith present stress-associated transcriptomes that inform prospects for lunar exploration

Using samples from Apollo 11, 12 and 17, we show that the terrestrial plant Arabidopsis thaliana germinates and grows in diverse lunar regoliths. However, our results show that growth is challenging; the lunar regolith plants were slow to develop, expressed genes indicative of ionic stresses, and many showed severe stress morphologies.

Therefore, although in situ lunar regolith can be useful for plant production in lunar habitats, they are not benign substrates. The interaction between plants and lunar regolith will need to be further elucidated, and likely mitigated, to enable efficient use of lunar regolith for life support.