Real-time images of cadmium transport in intact plants with the Positron Emitting Tracer Imaging System (PETIS)

Abstract

The Positron Emitting Tracer Imaging System (PETIS) is a non-invasive tool to capture movies of distribution of positron-emitting radioactive tracers in an intact plant body. This technique has been employed in studies of transportation of nutrients in living plants. In this study, we focused on cadmium which contamination of crops is an important problem in the world.
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) and oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) plants were grown for 4 to 5 weeks and 2 to 4 weeks respectively, and used for the experiments. ¹⁰⁷Cd (half-life: 6.5 hours) was prepared as the radiotracer, with ion beam bombardment and chemical purification. We fed the tracer into hydroponic culture and carried out the imaging of the base of root and the aerial part of the plants for 11 to 37 hours. In this presentation, we show the first real-time images of cadmium transport in intact plants with PETIS.